Mass Effect: Newton's First Law
by Raven Studios
Summary: If the Normandy's crew knew what they were in for, they would have stepped back to wonder if they were in the wrong line of work. But when serving with a crew like this, it's not all bad news, all the time. Snapshots of Mass Effect in 1000-word vignettes. (Cover images all belong to Bioware. As with Mass Effect itself, I'm just borrowing them and giving credit where it's due.)
1. Bottom of the Barrel

Opening Author's Notes

First off: thanks to everyone who asked about a sequel during "Cause and Effect". I hope you'll not be disappointed. C&E covers this Shepard's background and is not necessary reading. A few events/conversations/characters are referenced, though. Shepard here is Jalissa Aileen (though her first name appears only rarely) of the Mindoir/War Hero/Infiltrator (combat/tech) variety. I have taken some creative license. Nothing drastic.

Second: I don't have a beta just now, so I ask your forgiveness in advance for any spelling/grammar errors. I catch as many as I can.

This story's format takes a little explaining (it may be new if you didn't read "Cause and Effect") If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these are those pictures. These are 1000-word snapshots; some are from Shepard's point of view, quite a few are not. The thousand words do not include author's notes, or any time/locale indicators.

The prompts come from my 100 Themes NaNo challenge, and are supplemented by the 100 Themes challenge.

Special thanks to the Mass Effect Wiki (masseffect[dot]wikia[dot]com[backslash]wiki[backslash]Mass_Effect_Wiki) for providing so much information in one place. They are my source.

Special thanks to Bioware, who owns Mass Effect – this disclaimer applies to any and all chapters of this work.

So, here we go. Enjoy.

-**MASS EFFECT: NEWTON'S FIRST LAW**-

_Newton's First Law states that an object in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force_.

"Bottom of the Barrel"

Ambassador Donnel Udina was not a happy man. On most days, it was a character reference, but today he was decidedly and with effort an unhappy man. He sat in a comfortable chair facing his desk in the Alliance embassy on the Citadel, while Capt. David Anderson and Adm. Steven Hackett stood, giving the impression of restlessness.

As well they should be, he thought darkly. This was not a decision to be made lightly. Not that their votes counted for much, more like character references to be reported to the deciding factor than anything else. He would never admit it, but his vote probably counted less than theirs.

At the ambassador's desk sat a turian, armored head to toe, luminous eyes fixed on three holos arrayed before him, two women and a man.

"What about this Shepard?" Nihlus Kryik, turian Spectre, picked up the holo of the taller woman.

"What about Shepard?" Udina managed to make it sound like a credible 'what would you like to know' question, but did not quite succeed. He had never met Shepard—nor any of the soldiers on display—but he had heard enough about her.

She was an idealist, someone who belonged on the front lines. She was a career woman, a lifer, a dog of war the likes of which the Alliance liked to have: a real live hero. Anderson liked her, if like was the word, which did not bode well for Udina being able to exercise any sway over her.

"No family, they were killed by slavers on Mindoir. Enlisted at seventeen, lied about her age. No one was looking too closely." Hackett could not applaud the lying, but when a victim like that tried to enlist people were apt not to ask many questions. No one was the wiser until her age on record and her bones told two different stories.

Ah, the training accidents Ns got into. Still, she exhibited those three desired qualities for most of her career: _adapt, improvise, overcome_.

"Lt. Commander Shepard, Jalissa A.," Anderson spoke up, after exchanging glances with Hackett. Anderson was there after the Skyllian Blitz. He knew Shepard's current CO, and as such knew what Robbins was willing to say—all of it good. "She was there during the Skyllian Blitz, organized forces on the ground—mostly civilians—and held the enemy at bay until the Fleet could get there. She's the only reason Elysium is still standing."

Nihlus ceased examining the holo. "Does she remember doing it?"

"Not coherently. Bits and pieces." Anderson shrugged. Many people in those sorts of situations remembered fragments rather than the whole. However, what she did remember either filled in between or set up for the highlights other people remembered.

Any other answer and Nihlus would have questioned whether she was being entirely truthful. People who boldly proclaimed to remember everything in such a situation with clarity generally either filled in the blanks, or were being less than truthful.

"Who's this?" He pointed a talon at the man.

"Lt. Commander Sheffler, John D. He was on Akuze, his entire unit was killed," Hackett rattled off. He had looked into that one himself. "He's a survivor."

Udina shook his head slowly. Forced to choose between Shepard and Sheffler, he would have to pick Shepard. If anyone asked his opinion, they both had too much baggage, too much trauma.

Nihlus agreed with Udina about Sheffler vs. Shepard, but for different reasons. He was not worried about emotional baggage. He worried about Sheffler being a machine, sacrificing free will to serve a greater whole, paring down the possibility of getting someone killed. He was the type who relied on a self-recognized authority to govern his every action, to give him prescribed methodology.

Take that away, that commanding entity and what happened?

Shepard was a by-the-booker too, but nothing like Sheffler.

"That last one is Lt. Commander Rogers, Eva K.—recently promoted." The bottom of the barrel as far as Anderson was concerned. "They call her the Butcher of Torfan."

Nihlus did not withdraw his hand from Rogers' holo, but politely requested details. He was surprised to find, during his research before this meeting, that the events on Torfan were connected with the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium, even though the events occurred two years apart.

He did not want to be responsible for training someone who would end up like his own mentor. Too many Spectres like that and there were foreseeable problems. The human would have enough trouble being the black sheet…was it 'black sheet'?

It couldn't be 'black sheet'.

"Grew up on Earth, gang life, got out when she was eighteen. Powerful biotic, an L2." Hackett's assessment was clinically clean. Only because she got jobs done was the only this list. She was an 'ends justify the means' person. He privately believed her implants were not as stable as people believed.

Though she got the job done, as far as Hackett was concerned, Rogers was the bottom of the barrel.

Udina had not met her, only seen her censored file. Of the three, she was his pick—she was supposedly keen to advance, even if getting advancements was not easy. He could use that, he was a politician; if she scratched his back he could scratch hers, as the old saying went.

It would start that way, but by the end of the day she would be tickling his throat with her field knife if it benefitted her more than maintaining an alliance with him.

"What's your take on Shepard?" Nihlus inquired of the ambassador.

"We can't question her courage," Udina allowed with a grimace.

Nihlus returned his keen gaze to the holo. He could work with that. He did not expect her to choke under pressure, he would not have to deal with human L2 complications. Not quite the bottom of the barrel after all. At the outset he feared they would give him a toy soldier to train into something far beyond that soldier's scope.


	2. Introduction Part 1

Captain David Anderson slouched in his office on Arcturus Station. Within a day or so his new crew would begin trickling in. Within a week or two he would know how well his picks would work. What he did not know left him in the dark, and nervous. Everyone involved knew Shepard was being screened for the Spectres. No, that was not right: she had already been screened.

This was her field test.

It was what the test would include worrying Anderson. He had no information, no destination, no standard operating procedure, no nothing. He had not been kept in the dark like this since…well, a long time ago. It worried him, for the sake of his crew. Sooner or later they would begin asking questions as to why their CO did not know anything.

Shepard would contain those; she had a gift for working with people. Captain Robbins certainly spoke highly of Shepard, and Shepard's progress over the years.

Captain Anderson began rifling the files on his desk again. Commander Shepard.

Lt. Moreau—hotshot pilot.

Chief Engineer Adams—excellent at whatever he was tasked to do.

Navigator Pressly—he and Shepard would have pounded some of the same dirt, metaphorically speaking.

Lt. Alenko—highly recommended by his last CO, unimpeachable service record, a biotic, already a proven asset on a ground team in a hot zone.

Dr. Chakwas—she would be able to keep anyone in line, even Shepard. He smiled grimly, remembering Shepard gimping about on a broken ankle, pretending she was not. Ah, the price you paid for being a living hero.

Doubtless Shepard would be the first to start asking questions. If CO recommendations were any indication, Moreau and Alenko would not be far behind. Which was a mixed blessing—people of intelligence were sometimes hard to find—but if it got out the officers were uneasy, or had no confidence in their Captain, it would affect the crew.

Anderson stopped this line of thought. It was hard, sometimes, to be married to one's career. He stacked the files and put them in his desk, locking them up safely. He should take good advice and take the night off.

Taking the night off meant getting out of the office—which took him back to the _Normandy_. She barely had the red tape off her. If a ship could give the impression of emotions, she would be raring to get out of the docking bay and into space. Or trouble, depending on how one looked at it.

Well, he could always tell the crew they were taking a 'walk around the block', testing engines, running diagnostics…that would eat up a little time until his superiors felt it necessary to take him out of the dark. As he looked around his half-lit office, contemplating calling it a day, another thought occurred to him.

Nihlus endorsed Shepard, but Anderson still worried. He didn't know Nihlus well, and could only pray Nihlus would not be a second edition of Saren.

-J-

"What do you think, Gunny?" Nirali Bhatia asked as she and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams sat on a low hill overlooking the early stages of a Prothean dig site on Eden Prime.

Williams abandoned examining the perfectly clear atmosphere, which made the moon seem so bright. "I dunno. It's an egghead convention, Bhatia." She had not seen this many geek-nerds in one place since stumbling into a chess club's practice back in high school.

Nirali chuckled softly. Williams tended to be blunt, but it worked for her, inviting others to speak plainly.

"You haven't got too much longer have you?" Williams glanced over at Nirali's exquisite features, feeling a pang of mild envy. Narrow and angular, Nirali could have passed for a model if she was a little taller. Still, you couldn't find a nicer person.

"No," Nirali smiled, her dark lips pulling back from slightly crooked teeth. "Samesh is already looking for a place to set up shop—we're going to open a restaurant, he and I." She always smiled when she spoke, or thought, of her husband back on Earth.

Williams' gaze drifted down from the stars to the pools of golden light caused by the chem-torches illuminating the dig site. A confirmed lifer, Williams did not consider herself above the non-lifers. They paid their four years in the service of humanity. Not everyone was called to spend their life as a soldier, just like all people weren't called to preach, or practice medicine. It really did take all sorts.

Besides—it was good to know there were plenty of former soldiers keeping an eye on the various Alliance-held worlds. "You know, it always astounds me how many scientists and doctors smoke." Nirali noted, crinkling her nose at the scent of cheap cigarettes.

Williams snorted in agreement. Her own experience with cigarettes remained firmly in her mind—mostly because she had gagged, choked, turned green and decided it was not worth the effort to look cool. "I guess they need something to do—not everyone likes going to the gym to pump iron." She did not enjoy pumping iron either, but when it was all you had…

"So, Gunny, what do you think about all this?" Nirali waved at the dig site. They had not turned up anything yet.

"I dunno what to think, Bhatia," Williams shifted again, her weapon nearby as she, like a third of the 212, kept an eye on things. Watches were posted around the clock at this site, ever since the day before yesterday. Technically she was not on duty, but with the eggheads getting jumpy she did not like leaving the site unattended. Of course, she had to sleep, but it did not come easy. "But I don't like it." The situation conjured up memories of old sci-fi vids, where unsuspecting archaeologists—or spacers—got infected by weird spores or bacteria.

She did not _believe _any of that crap…but she could not help remembering it. It was just one of those things.


	3. Introduction Part 2

Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko sat in the terminal which would take him from the _SSV Berlin_ to the VOQ. It would take a couple days for his stuff to catch up with him. Any civilian would have pegged him only the usual brand of beefy marine. He was glad of it, if the truth had to be told. Blending in was not as overrated as some people seemed to think.

Nor was he as calmly indifferent as one might think from his expression. He _had _enjoyed serving under Captain Darryl, but the prospect of serving on a frigate, zipping about the galaxy had the same sort of appeal as a motorcycle to a teenager. And the _SSV Normandy_ sounded like a real piece of work. Partly because details were scantier than usual.

"Hey Lieutenant."

"Richardson."

Richardson said nothing else, knowing the Lieutenant's habit of keeping to himself. The only time the man came out of his shell was when things started happening, or bullets started flying.

Captain David Anderson—a living hero. And he was captaining the ship—which left Alenko surprised and a little worried. He had met Anderson once, and been favorably impressed. The man was personable, but in a way that garnered respect without demanding it. A true leader of men.

Well, wherever Anderson went, things would not be dull. If half the stories were to believed he, Alenko, was in for the ride of his life. He honestly looked forward to it.

The transport slid up at that moment. Both marines got to their feet and boarded. The late hour meant an empty bus, allowing Richardson and Alenko their pick of seats. "Where to?" The driver asked as the two marines heaved their gear into the racks overhead, fastening the necessary straps to keep it from rolling out.

"TLF*." Richardson stifled a yawn.

"VOQ*."

"So you're really leaving?" Richardson had heard rumors, but due to Alenko's reserved attitudes, no one knew anything for sure.

"Yeah," Alenko shrugged. "You go where personnel sends you, right?"

Richardson subsided into silence as the transport started off.

Alenko rested his head against the window, watching the scenery zip past. It was not his first time on Arcturus. The station was a regular stopping point for the _Berlin_. Arcturus was big enough for him to forget he was in space and not in a big bubble on the ground somewhere. Despite the nature of the station, it still sported a vaulted roof here and there. The observation deck on the topmost level gave an unparalleled view of space on all sides, including looking up.

Closing his eyes, he decided it was too late to hit the racquetball court. Better to get a good night's sleep and report for duty a little early. Besides, he was curious about the _Normandy_. The tone of his orders was full of the usual objective declarations—but something about the wording put him in mind of a blind.

He loved puzzles, and this certainly was one.

-J-

Lt. Commander Jalissa Shepard had lived on Arcturus Station ever since her transfer to the _SSV El Alamein_. That was one mercy of her newest posting: she did not have to move out of her apartment to some other station, or worse a planetside posting. After Mindoir, Elysium, and so many years in space, Shepard did not like living groundside. With her ditty bag and weapons case, she was braced to tackle whatever the new posting threw at her.

It was ridiculous to expect anyone to know everything about Arcturus. She still had not explored several corners of it; there was no point. A marine usually focused on their duty station's docking bay, the NEX, the commissary, the MWR buildings, apartment, and emergency protocols.

Today, however, took her to a docking bay locked down with _the_ most stringent security she ever saw in one place. She was amazed they did not conduct a full physical just to let her get in the door. Fingerprints were checked, retinas scanned, ID tags swiped, all tasks performed by tough-looking marines who were in no way green recruits. Whatever was in that docking bay was important.

Shepard knew it only as the _SSV Normandy_. She wordlessly let the guards go through her gear, making sure there was nothing there that should not be. What was she going to do? Run to the press first chance she got? Shepard regarded the press with the same distaste she might regard a varren coated in something disgusting. She would avoid it if possible.

"All right, ma'am," the guards saluted again, "you're clear to go." The head security officer scanned her ID tags, activating permanent clearance to the dock before handing them back to her.

Shepard dropped them about her neck, letting them vanish beneath her blue shirt. "Thank you," she returned the salute before striding through the doors.

The _Normandy_ nearly took her breath away. It waited in its docking bay, a great bird of prey ready to be unleashed. Comparing her with the _El Alamein_ was like comparing a prized hawk to a park pigeon, a noted prima ballerina to some marines whom she preferred not to name, who had no skill on a dance floor. The design was radically different from anything Shepard had ever seen—though not so much so as to be unrecognizable.

She could hardly believe she was to serve as the XO on this masterpiece of engineering. For the moment, at least, her reservations about the speediness, the hush-hush approach to reassigning her to this crew vanished.

She continued along the dock's walkway, towards to bow of the ship where the gangplank angled to the decontamination chamber. The paint on the _Normandy _was not even _chipped_ yet, just like a toy straight out of the box. She stepped into the d-con chamber and caught the camera linking the ship to the outside world moving its lens. "Lt. Commander J. Shepard, reporting for duty."

"…Uh…just a minute, Commander—got to verify you."

-Author's Notes-

For those who don't know, TLF stands for Temporary Living Facility and VOQ are the Visiting Officers' Quarters


	4. Sarcasm

"Boards are green…" Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko frowned at the panels in the cockpit of the _Normandy_. The ship was solid, inside and out—he did not have the aesthetic appreciation for the vessel as others did. Still, it was a sturdy little ship. "Still." It was not as though they were out of the docking bay.

If Joker—flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau refused to answer to anything else—asked him one more time…it was going to set off a migraine. Alenko just knew it. The pilot was bored, he had to be. He could only hope Joker proved half as good as he boasted; in the manner of all hotshot pilots, Alenko thought wearily. They all had big mouths, at least, those he knew.

"Green is good…" Joker's hands danced across the panels, eyes narrowed at the panels as if expecting trouble. "Green is very good…trust me." He ignored the irritation emanating from Alenko patiently. Once they got this baby out in deep space, Alenko would stop sulking. Alenko was fun to elbow in the ribs, he made grim stoic faces and made painfully prosaic issue-dodging answers.

Not exactly a cunning wit, but definitely fun to hassle.

Alenko closed his eyes, rolling them, unseen. If Joker was _this _paranoid while docked, what kind of neurotic would he be once they took the ship out into real space? "You know, this thing's not going to get scuffed while docked," Alenko pointed out, relaxing slightly in the padded copilot's chair. Not exactly a comfortable fit, it was designed for someone shorter, but at least it was padded.

"_She_, Alenko, the ship's always a she, you should know that…" Everyone who worked on a ship knew that—or should know. "People'll think you spent your life pounding dirt."

Alenko rolled his eyes again. What did Joker think a ground team _did_ when not aboard ship?

"Besides, you can never be too careful…ah-ha, there she is…the rest of the brass." Joker pulled up an external security feed. "Captain Anderson?" Joker found the Captain's radio frequency, and activated it.

"_Yes, Joker?_"

"Your XO is here." He fiddled with his console, zooming in as the XO lumbered along, listing to one side with the weight of the weapons case in one hand. Whatever firepower she had in there, it was heavy, and she was obviously not used to carrying it in a case.

What did he have in that thing? A bazooka?

A short pause before the Captain's gravelly voice came across the channel. "_Good, I'll be up shortly._" 

Alenko squinted at the moving image while Joker spoke with the Captain. There was something oddly familiar about the XO from this distance. He could have sworn he'd seen her before…

"So…what do you think?" Joker panned back a bit, so they could see the soldier from cap to boot as she moved steadily along.

"You _know_ what I think," Alenko shook his head, knowing what Joker was really asking. It wasn't a question Joker, or Alenko himself, ought to think on too hard. Not with regards to an executive officer, anyway. So, with all due respect to female marines he had come up with an acceptable answer to this uncomfortable question. "'Tonka tuff'."

Not 'built like a Mack', but 'Tonka tuff'. Alenko had no idea where his mother picked the saying up, only that it seemed to fit. He had a feeling yellow pint-sized construction vehicles came into the equation somewhere, but couldn't be sure.

Joker snorted at this answer. Alenko ought to be in intel somewhere. If he wasn't a biotic, he'd be behind a desk in some dingy basement playing charts and darts with big nerd glasses…

Joker's expression changed in an instant as the XO paused to heft her sea bag more securely onto her shoulder. "Aw crap…" Joker's jaw sagged slightly as the image sharpened again, revealing a narrow, angular face, a faint lopsided smirk, and vivid eyes, neither blue nor green. "That's…"

"No way…" Alenko watched the easily recognizable visage of Commander J. Shepard, the Hero of Elysium striding purposefully towards the _Normandy_. His stomach quavered uneasily—_that_ could be the source of odd recognition. His stomach tensed again, though this time it had nothing to do with seeing another celebrity onboard.

Well, yes, it did. Captain Anderson, a hotshot crew…and now Shepard. And they were all supposed to take this ship—prototype or not—on a shakedown run? On a Sunday afternoon walk in the park? It didn't add up. Even for a unique ship like the _Normandy_. Was it just him, or was there too much talent, and too much brass on this boat? Reservations increased. Something boiled just beneath the surface where neither he, nor anyone else could see it.

He hoped it would not boil over, but with two combat-tested combat-proven N7s on this rig, he could not help thinking things _would_ boil over. The crew would be the ones who got scalded.

That _is_ her…" Joker glanced at Alenko then back to the display.

Stories about Shepard ranged from putting her at half-past crazy, to one of the best officers a soldier could hope to serve with, to being _the_ most frigid bitch the Alliance ever recruited, depending on who you asked.

Batarians apparently had an extremely low opinion of her, and had probably invented brand new slurs in her honor—though that was only scuttlebutt, and therefore not to be taken too seriously.

The commlink to the outside world beeped. "Lt. Commander J. Shepard, reporting for duty. Requesting permission to come aboard." It was not a question. Her voice, husky from hauling the luggage around, came across clearly over the radio. She knew where to look for the security cameras, for she immediately faced it_. _

"…Uh…just a minute, Commander—got to verify you." Joker cued the appropriate measures. "Stuff blows up around some of these people…"

"Look like you're going to have to work, after all: you won't want to scuff the _Normandy's_ finish."


	5. Smug

Special thanks to Saberlin, who gave this chapter a wonderful beta-read.

-J-

Shepard stood near the helm, close enough to hear Joker and Alenko if they mumbled, far enough away so as not to seem like part of the group. "Two people in d-con, Commander," Alenko relayed, cuing the sequence.

"And one of them ain't one of ours," Joker noted.

Of all the Normandy's crew, only Shepard and Anderson knew about the Spectre. The secrecy currently shrouding the Spectre would not last long.

At least Anderson had informed Shepard of Nihlus' actual position before the turian's arrival. Of all the crew she certainly needed to know…even if he had not shared the 'why'.

She glanced at the backs of the lieutenants' heads. They were both astute, casting periodic glances at her since she came to hover near the airlock, anticipatory of Anderson's arrival with their turian guest.

She could handle a turian aboard ship, if the Captain wanted one there. She did not like a _Spectre_ aboard ship, regardless of what the Captain wanted.

By dinnertime the whole crew would buzz with the news of a turian Spectre riding…what? Shotgun? _Technically_ Nihlus had no authority to tell Anderson what to do on his own boat, but Spectres wielded enough unofficial power to…

The airlock's hiss silenced Shepard's private considerations. She snapped a salute as the ship's computer spoke. "_Captain Anderson is on deck. Commander Shepard stands relieved_."

"Captain." Shepard eyed the turian behind Anderson closely.

"At ease, Commander."

Shepard relaxed marginally as Anderson glanced around.

She had scrupulously obeyed his instructions to clear as many people off the bridge as possible. She went further by sending all nonessential personnel to take an afternoon off. He suspected she included 'too stubborn to want to argue with' as criteria for what constituted 'essential personnel'. "How's the crew?" he asked, without directing himself to the lieutenants discreetly listening in.

"I took the liberty of authorizing the crew a couple hours on station—head down to the NEX for more socks or whatnot." The reference to spacers' syndrome did not go unnoticed by any of the humans. "_Most_ took it gladly, others..." she glanced at Alenko, who watched out of the corner of his eyes. Upon seeing his observation was noticed, he immediately flicked his attention where it belonged, "opted to stay behind."

Shepard prided herself on having shifted two-thirds of the crew out of the way so as to keep Nihlus' arrival quiet. "Excellent. This is Nihlus Kryik, he'll be joining us for the shakedown."

Nihlus, still standing silently beside Anderson, towered over the humans. He inclined his head, but his eyes did not leave Shepard. The slow wave of his mandibles gave him an air of thoughtfulness.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Kryik. There's fresh coffee in the mess, Captain. It should still be hot."

"The additional supplies?" Obviously meaning the turian edibles. It didn't do to poison visitors, especially Spectres.

"All accounted for, tagged, and stowed. Requisitions took care of it before he left. Everything's in order; we can launch as soon as the crew gets back. Isn't that right, Joker?"

The turian continued watching her. Shepard did not overtly eye him back, but she, the Captain, and Nihlus all shared a moment of watching-without-watching. Shepard could not decide who Anderson was watching, Nihlus or herself. Maybe both.

"Absolutely ma'am, sirs." Joker waved as if to say he had it covered.

"Good," Anderson nodded. "Can I offer you coffee?" Everyone present knew the offer was simply a polite gesture.

"No, thank you, I never indulge," Nihlus responded blandly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander. I saw the rundown of the Blitz. Well handled."

Something in the words made Shepard want to curl her lip in distaste. She did not, however, opting to fall back on established habit. "It was a team effort." It was also the truth, but not enough so to shift the laurels where they belonged.

"Indeed," Nihlus finally took his vivid eyes off Shepard. In the moment during which he peered over Joker and Alenko's shoulders—causing both men to tense—Shepard caught Anderson's eye.

Anderson mouthed _humor him_, but that was as far as the exchange went, barring Shepard's tiny nod of comprehension.

_Humor him_. Spectres were probably used to being humored. She would maintain her current course, then, pretending Nihlus was another uniform with brass on the collar. She long ago learned the trick of respecting the rank, not necessarily the person wearing it.

"This vessel is quite interesting. Very well constructed."

Shepard, not heeding the polite response from Anderson, wondered why neither Anderson nor Nihlus seemed in a hurry to get on with business. Things kept getting fishier and fishier. If things continued on this course, they might as well turn in their battleship credentials and stock up on nets and bait.

"You would not object to my taking a tour of your vessel?" Nihlus gave the Captain the turian equivalent of a smile. "Or as you're busy with last-minute, pre-departure tasks, perhaps you would prefer delegating the Commander?"

Shepard's eyes slid to the turian. _That_ sounded like the kind of 'suggestion' a superior officer made to one of his underlings when outright orders would be inappropriate.

With Nihlus' back to them, Joker and Alenko shifted in their chairs to watch, obviously in agreement with Shepard's unspoken assessment.

"Certainly. Commander, make yourself available."

"Yes, sir." Nihlus was usurping the Captain's position, and she did not like it.

Nihlus took another moment to examine Shepard, in a fashion she found ominous. He radiated the classic 'I know something you don't know' aura

"I don't like him." Joker summed up the opinion floating in the cockpit. "Guy's spooky."

If only Joker knew.

"Pretty confident…" Alenko flayed his lip thoughtfully. Whatever game the turian was playing, the Captain was playing along. The Commander looked as though she was trying to, but without knowing exactly what the game was.

"Confident? No, I know confidence…" Shepard declared, more to herself than anyone else.

"What would you call it?" Joker asked casually.

"Damn smug."


	6. Spiral

Beta-read by Saberlin; thanks, I appreciate it.

-J-

Silence filled the communications room as Joker patched through the distress call. The soundless display of Eden Prime's largest urban-esque area was suddenly punctuated by gunfire.

"_Down!_ _Get down_!" A woman shoved the camera towards the dirt. More gunfire and the general ambient noise of a battle in the background made Shepard go completely still.

Here it was, things were already spiraling out of control. Well, at least they were not terribly far out. The color drained out of her face, leaving her pale but in no danger of collapse.

Shepard looked more like a statue rather than living woman, bright eyes focused on the feed. Nihlus could not tell if the whitened pallor came from shock, fury, or something less definable. Whatever it was, it did not seem to have any impact except leeching her color. Good. Steel nerves went a long way in his line of business.

Shepard's fingernails bit into cold, clammy palms. This was not some Spectre trick testing her nerves. No, this was bad news in vivid color. It reminded her uncomfortably of another colony a long time ago…

_Don't think about that. Bullets flying? Gung-ho marine? First in, last out? Come on, Shepard, pull it together. _The sharp mental slap brought her back to herself. Nihlus' veiled subtleties of speech and implication had her jumpier than she thought.

On any other day, she would already have her ground team halfway ready to deploy. Her initial shock and mental discomfort dissolved like sugar in warm water.

So, who was stirring up trouble this time? She could easily identify the motive, Nihlus already hinted as much. A Prothean beacon was too much for some people to stay away from. Well, it was their bad day and the colony's lucky break. All the planetside garrison had to do was hold out a little longer.

Picture reappeared as the camera's owner was rolled over by one of the soldiers. "_We are under attack!_" the man bellowed, "_taking heavy casualties_..." the display flickered, interspersed with 'snow', "…_repeat heavy casualties_…" A scream made him duck.

Shepard's teeth ground together; so much for holding out until reinforcements arrived.

"W_e can't…-eed evac_…_They came out of nowhere! Anyone hearing this! We need…"_ The soldier's face became a picture of horror as he looked past the camera. The camera's display shifted as though having fallen, revealing stark shock on the faces of the clustered soldiers.

Whatever phantasm stood before them, out of sight for the shipside onlookers, seemed enough to freeze independent thought.

Someone jerked the camera upright, revealing…a ship? But no ship any of the viewers could identify. _It's not batarian…_Shepard was unsure whether to be glad of this or not. With batarians she knew what to expect…but it was also very easy, to fall into the pit of mindlessly hating them again.

The display fizzled and went dark. "_That's it, sir_," Joker relayed, his tone somber, "_everything cuts out after that. No traffic at all. Completely dead…there's _nothing…" Unease at his inability to pull in more feeds colored Joker's voice.

"Reverse and hold; I want another look at that ship." In all his years with the Alliance, Anderson never before saw _anything_ like that behemoth. It was utterly massive and completely alien even among alien space vessels.

The ship…like some giant hand, or mechanical squid, filled the screen. Red lightning—or something visually similar—wreathed the monstrosity.

"You ever see a ship like that?" Shepard asked Nihlus, her voice as calm and flat as a placid lake. The hulk was not a ship the _Normandy_ could hope to fight head-on, even with the element of surprise. Thank goodness they were virtually invisible just now.

"It's not…one of ours," obviously turian, "or one of yours. Nothing I've ever seen," Nihlus answered, just as blankly. What the hell was that thing?

"It's not batarian. Terminus Systems don't have anything that big…or that heavily armed." If what she saw were gun turrets, it would probably take half the Alliance fleet to take it down.

Nihlus nodded in mute agreement.

"Status report," Anderson snapped, eyes still fixed on the monstrosity backed by a reddened sky.

"_Seventeen minutes out. No other Alliance ships in the area_." No doubt Joker was combing scanners to make sure he knew when the inevitable question came up.

"This mission just got complicated," Anderson mumbled to himself. "Take us in, Joker, fast and quiet."

"_Aye sir_," Joker's communication channel severed. The crackle seemed to wake the two officers and the Spectre out of silent contemplation of the mechanical juggernaut.

"Well, looks like the bullets are about to start flying," Shepard announced. "I'm game."

She always was. She was also perfectly serious despite the lighthearted words. Her fingers caressed her omni-tool, as though gently waking a sleeping monster-companion anticipatory of mythic battle.

"A small strike team can move in quickly, without attracting the wrong sort of attention. It's our best chance for securing the beacon," Nihlus fell back on his mission's basic parameters. Recover the beacon, at all costs.

"Cause I doubt _that_ is there for anything else…" Shepard crossed her arms before her chest, shaking her head slowly. "That is one big, ugly sucker. Let's not waste any time."

Any surprise that she had not mentioned survivors was kept silent. Shepard could see no better way to ensure survivors than to promptly remove the enemy's reason for hitting the colony. Or make that reason to expensive—in terms of men and material—for the enemy to continue the attack.

Then, only then, she could shift her focus.

"Grab your gear, Shepard. Tell Jenkins and Alenko to suit up," Anderson instructed.

She did not bat an eyelash at the lopsided composition of the team. Any team on this ship would take some breaking in. Two officers and one green E? Well, Alenko was a biotic, his presence made sense. "Aye sir," Shepard tore her eyes off the screen, her mind cranking up like giant turbines as she turned smartly and left the room.


	7. PrepTime

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

The cargo bay on the _Normandy_ did more than house cargo: it hosted the arms and armor for ground teams, it housed the requisitions station, and it served as the garage and diagnostics area for the M35 Mako. The master-at-arms would have had a duty station there, if the ship had a master-at-arms.

Everything requiring _space_ went in the cargo bay. Shepard suspected sooner or later training weights would appear from some hidden storage bin.

Jenkins, Alenko, and Shepard sat on a bench facing their lockers, already wearing their underarmor—not to be confused with underwear. Underarmor was simply something to keep the mesh layer of armor from pinching or pulling, and generally somewhat slippery.

Underarmor was also never standard issue.

Shepard produced a pot of white powder, dabbing the contents carefully around her neck, working to keep it mostly on her skin, not on the mesh. "Corn starch," she offered it to the quizzical Jenkins, "Keeps armor from chafing your neck." Standard-issue stuff had a reputation for chafing about the collar. Shepard knew the starch would wear off, but marines had rituals before hitting dirt; this was one of hers.

Alenko had never heard of this and did not doubt the assertion. Nevertheless, he declined.

Jenkins accepted the powder readily, with the end result of having it sprinkled it all over his mesh.

Armor was tricky, hence why teams armored up together. First came underarmor, then the mesh suit which required someone else to zip up the back. Shepard struggled into the tight-fitting weave, standing up to tug it comfortably into place.

Her first time trying to wriggle into the suit still haunted her. She feared, at that point in her life, that Instructor Mike Yamada was going to kill her. On the day in question, she decided he would not: the armoring-up process would.

"I've got you." Alenko shoved his arms though the sleeves of his own mesh, shrugging it the rest of the way on as he rose. Carefully, he brushed aside any locks too short to catch in Shepard's regulation bun, before pulling her zipper up to her neck.

Women got touchy when you caught their hair in a zipper's teeth.

"Thanks." Shepard didn't need to gesture for Alenko to turn around so she could zip him up. She also took a moment to examine the plastic shield keeping his headjack* free of contaminants.

She would never say it aloud, but it reminded her of a child-proofed power outlet. Shepard motioned for Jenkins to stop fussing with his perfectly-fitted mesh and hurry up.

Alenko retrieved his amp in its plastic box. Unlike most standard-issue gear, a biotic's amp got more attention than a gun or armor. It had to if the biotic was to function properly. Amps were one place the Alliance couldn't afford to cut corners, or go with cheap contracts.

Removing the protective shield from the port near the base of his skull, he positioned the amp and slid it home. Momentary pressure behind his eyes, and the sensation of a current running through his teeth let him know it was connected and working. Both sensations diminished until he scarcely noticed them.

Before pulling the plating for his armor, he ran through the basic kinesthetic drills. The biotic equivalent of checking shield batteries, and ammunition blocks.

Shepard regarded the process with interest, though she couldn't think of a polite way to ask 'so what _exactly_ can you do?'.

"Batteries." Shepard's outward calm seemed unshakable.

"Clear…" Alenko glanced at the indicator on the outer layer of his armor.

"Charged," Jenkins agreed, shrugging plates into place. The glamour of the situation wasn't lost on him. He worried for people he knew on Eden Prime, but it was _him_ coming to the rescue—with the notorious Commander Shepard as well! What better time to make a homecoming?

Shepard began anchoring the smaller plates to the mesh. Some people—the ones who never wore it—thought armor was a one-piece affair. It looked like one piece (more or less), but in the interest of mobility and other practicalities it was not.

"Everyone got extra ammunition blocks?" She refused to take a mission without an extra block of ammunition, regardless of whether or not the block in her weapon was a fresh one.

"Extra blocks…?" Jenkins frowned his confusion.

The question surprised even Alenko. A person could rely on a single ammunition block for ages, and his block was nearly fresh. Carrying an extra was like wearing an extra torso plate—redundant.

"You run with me, you carry extra ammunition. It's better to never need it, and as long as you've got it you won't need it." She had run out of ammunition once and only once. She would not endure such an occurrence again.

Alenko, mildly surprised, dutifully fetched a second block.

Shepard smiled at the gaping Jenkins; it was like the smile of a lazy predator. "Humor me." With this statement, she continued pulling her armor on, checking the gravlocks in her boots before fastening a sheath with a knife about her right calf.

Standing up—and giving her shield indicator another check—Shepard hopped up and down a few times, settling the plates before hitching one or two so they fit more comfortably.

Alenko began plating up as well, kinesthetic drills finished. A quick glance at Shepard, checking her mobility before checking her weapons, left him with the impression that the Commander was officially in her element.

The only one who felt nervous and showed it was Jenkins, who redoubled his efforts to match the deceptively calm, business-as-usual attitudes projected by the officers.

Shepard charged her shotgun, trying to quell her own nerves. _Deep, even breaths_, she reminded herself, _deep even breaths_. She pulled on her helmet, but did not activate the environmental seals. Her omni-tool clicked as she locked it around her wrist. "Check your radios," Shepard relayed absently, shrugging on her web belt. "_Normandy_. Radio check, Shepard."

"_Loud and clear, Commander. ETA three minutes._"

-Author's Notes-

*Headjack: Slang. It refers both to the full hookup between the port in the biotic's head and his/her amp, as well as to the actual cranial port in and of itself. It is not considered particularly offensive, even if it is not technically an accurate description.

Web belt: where various articles (like Alenko's medical kit) are clipped/stowed. I know in-game there's no need, but for practicality's sake...well, those specialized ammo blocks have to go somewhere.

A note on the mesh underlay: it's actually much thinner at the fingers than elsewhere, allowing for dexterity.


	8. Misfortune

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was all nightmarishly wrong.

The keyed-up forced-calm of entering a hot zone finished settling over Alenko, completely independent of Shepard's grim business-as-usual attitude. He was, after all, an experienced soldier. He had hit dirt before, though not in a situation like this. He flexed his left hand, the prickling sensation of dark energy pooling in his fingertips, preparatory to use.

Shepard's concerns about Jenkins remained in the forepart of Alenko's mind as they moved almost single-file. Jenkins moved between the officers, where Alenko could see him, and Shepard could yank on the corporal's leash.

The caustic smell of death, smoke and destruction stung his nose as Alenko kept his eyes open, and situational awareness high. Overhead, the sky glowed red, menacing and ominous.

Equally ominous—or perhaps he should have found it reassuring, with regards to a green kid in his first hot zone—was Jenkins' obvious distress at seeing Eden Prime, _home_ in ruins.

More disturbing to Alenko than his current surroundings, which he forced himself to look at objectively, was the complete lack of anything hostile. Though the gas bags—that was what Jenkins called them—certainly looked hostile, given the circumstances, as they drifted ghostlike over the ground.

Vaguely reminiscent of hanar…

Shepard crouched behind a rock, holding up a fist for them to stop behind her. She turned pantomiming snapping her fingers to make sure she had Alenko's attention. She gave him the hand sign for 'see anything?'. Alenko shook his head after looking about. The lack of enemies gave the soldiers the feeling of being watched.

Shepard turned, ready to direct them to follow her at intervals.

Jenkins did not let her get that far, patting her shoulder, asking silent permission to go first.

Shepard shook her head, but the corporal silently pressed her.

Alenko was not the sort to coddle his subordinates, but he had a bad feeling about a rookie going first. Well, that summed it up: it was just a _bad feeling_. It was, to use the clichéd phrase, too quiet. As though everything and everyone was holding their breaths, two ambushes awaiting some sort of mistake by the other party.

Shepard exhaled softly, before nodding Jenkins forward.

Of course, she would know what it was to see 'home' in smoking ruins. And Jenkins was close to this assignment. Alenko shook his head, but caught the sound before Shepard or Jenkins did—he prayed it was not because of audio-sensitivity setting in. With all the things going wrong today, no one here needed him half-blind and unable to cope with the sound of polite conversation, let alone weapon-fire.

But he heard it, nonetheless—a faint whirr. Shepard suddenly tensed. Before she could manage more than a hissed, 'Jen—', gunfire sounded.

Every muscle in Alenko's body tried to flinch, as every ounce of training he ever received tried to keep his eyes from closing in response to the flinch. He _needed_ his eyes. Alenko found the bogeys first, small synthetics, little more than flying metal basketballs with pistols mounted to their chassis.

Then, and only then, he looked for Jenkins.

Jenkins hit the ground, his cry of shock cut off abruptly as bullets riddled his body, jerking him obscenely about. Blood spouted from several of the impact points, where the bullets punched through his armor's plates. Alenko's heart nearly stopped. The only way something like _that_ could happen was faulty shields and high-powered rounds.

They had _checked_ shields—and it was always best to assume where one shield battery was faulty, the rest were. It was the perversity of equipment to fail when it was needed most.

Not quite as perverse, but just as disturbing, was Shepard suddenly breaking cover, springing towards another rock formation. As Alenko jumped up, dark energy flaring while Shepard let off two blasts from her shotgun. She worked it like someone so well-used to it that firing the weapon was like brushing her hair—something she did not need to think about, something routine.

Shepard reached the rocks, dispatching one of the synthetics, and severely damaging another. Return fire slammed into the stone, but rocks were tougher than shields and armor.

Only Alenko knew how brutal the attack was; he crumpled the synthetics like cheap, low-grade aluminum. The drones hit the ground with dull clunks. Relative silence settled once more.

"See anything?" Shepard demanded, not bothering to remain silent any longer; they had already made enough noise to wake the dead.

"Negative...I think we're clear, Commander…" He did not hear what she muttered to herself, but guessed what it was. It was the same thing he was thinking: they _thought_ they were clear when Jenkins took point.

"Hang back a minute…" Shepard vanished around the rock formation, edging towards Jenkins, well aware of the tactic involving winging one team member to draw out the others. There was no reason not to expect such a ploy now.

Nothing happened.

"Clear," Shepard called, kneeling beside Jenkins.

Alenko hurried forward, ready for anything. He pulled Jenkins' helmet off, checking for a pulse. Contrary to popular belief, the fingers of armor-mesh were thin enough to detect such things—though only with practice. He did not expect to find a pulse.

"He's gone." Alenko caught, for a fleeting moment, a look of pained nostalgia on Shepard's face.

It vanished when she looked away from the corpse to regard him. "We'll see he gets a proper service, but we have our orders. Let's move him."

"Where do you want him?" Alenko tried to put mental blocks around the fact that Corporal Jenkins was dead. He could not quite relegate Jenkins into the role of so much meat on a slab.

Given how Shepard kept pressing her lips together, as though trying to redistribute lip balm, she was having less trouble dehumanizing the late Jenkins, though it cost her some effort to do so.

Alenko biotically shifted Jenkins out of the way, settling him behind one of the large rock formations.

"Let's go."


	9. Cope

Beta-ready by Saberlin.

-J-

The white face gazed up at them, the last moments of Jenkins' life captured like a holo. Blood seeping into the thirsty ground beneath the young marine. With a heavy sigh, Alenko got to his feet; there was nothing he could do, nothing he could have done. Jenkins was gone before anyone could reach him.

At least it was quick, no writhing about injured, screaming for teammates to come and save him, no lying there with blood gushing out, feeling the cold fist of death tightening on his heart and lungs. It was not comforting, but it was better than nothing.

Still, part of Alenko was very glad the task of writing to Jenkins' parents would not fall to him. Was there any compassionate way to break news like that? No officer wanted to write those letters, though those that had to rarely shirked the duty.

Shepard's quiet words tapped their way into his thoughts, like fat raindrops on glass. "We'll see that he gets a proper service, but we have our orders. Help me move him." If he had been unable to see her face, Alenko would have thought Jenkins was already so much meat on a slab to Shepard.

Her face told a different story, a reassuring one. She was practical, if nothing else; they _did_ have to keep moving. But she did not like it. Her mouth thinned; for a moment she seemed to see someone or something else—not necessarily every soldier she ever lost, but maybe a few of them.

And she _did_ want Jenkins' remains out of the way, somewhere safe, so the likelihood of the corpse being despoiled would stay low. Alenko was a biotic—it would take him less time to shift the body than it would take two marines doing it manually.

"Where do you want him?" Shepard motioned vaguely to all the rock formations. Alenko did not like leaving Jenkins either, as he gently shifted Jenkins' corpse. It would, hopefully, stay safe behind those rocks.

The thoughts violated one of the first things the Alliance tried to teach those officers likely to see combat: _you're going to lose men. The sooner you stop thinking of dead crewmen as _your men _and start thinking of them as _dead meat _all the better for you and all the better your unit._ Tears and grief had to wait; they could be people again later.

"If we're going to save this colony, we've got to get the beacon off it—it's what they're here for." The forced businesslike tone did not conceal Shepard's concern for the colonists. Shepard gave him a bracing smack to the shoulder, also indication he should follow her. Any thoughts he might have had for telling her Jenkins' death was not her fault never got past wondering if he _should_. Shepard had already shouldered responsibility; trying to absolve her of it—right now at least—would only piss her off.

The back of his mind continued processing as the foremost part focused on the business at hand. They had not yet started tripping over dead colonists…so maybe there were still people to save.

It startled him that even aboard the Normandy, with things just starting to spiral out of control, Shepard did not seem to think about survivors. Given her personal history, he expected her to raise the issue of looking for them. Now her reasoning made sense: they could not form a search party and expect to get results while fighting the unknown. In fact, worrying about the colonists as a primary concern would hurt them in the long run: the beacon would remain, and while it did the enemy would keep coming.

He thought he saw her entire train of reason. This was no attack by raiders after slaves and plunder; this was a precise attack with a specific target. Remove the target and the attack on the colony would, theoretically, cease. They could still help any survivors, save as many as possible, but they had to do it obliquely, like the logic game of trying to switch all the blocks in a grid to one color.

Doubtless the Alliance knew there was trouble by now. Anderson would have contacted them; reinforcements were probably on their way.

The echoes of gunfire and Jenkins' last shout ringing in Alenko's ears slowly silenced as he and Shepard continued moving. Shock gave way to something else, something he had not felt for a long time. It ruffled his usual self-disciplined calm, tugged at his habit of tempering attacks, of holding back.

His expression hardened. If the enemy—whoever they were—thought they were killing any more of this team, they would find themselves wholly and painfully mistaken.

He quenched the venomous heat coming with the sentiment. _That_ would not help; it would make him a liability. Shepard was not the only one good at compartmentalizing thoughts and feelings. He was a biotic; he had to know how to compartmentalize, (or whispers of 'unstable' started to bandy about). He was not quite successful in separating the mildly vengeful desire to biotically flatten the opposition from the logical necessity of doing just that.

And yet…he'd never lost a man before. The thought quenched some of the emotion attached to the need to take action. He'd seen dead civilians, dead enemies, and dead soldiers from other units during his time in the service. This was different. Jenkins was one of _his_. It was part of his job to bring Jenkins back. It was what the Alliance taught…tried to teach their officers.

…was that what was running in the background of Shepard's mind?

She prowled ahead, stooping with her weapon ready to fire. The air around her seemed to quiver apprehensively. Whatever spooked Shepard soon passed, for she rose and continued forward again.

She did, however, glance back at him, her eyes meeting his before sliding back to where Jenkins ought to have followed. She only looked back for a moment, but it spoke volumes.


	10. In the Storm

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212 knew she was going to die. There was no way around it. That ship was still hanging in the sky, as though waiting to find a soft target from which to leech the life out of the planet. The geth—they had to be geth—were still working with mindless devotion, running down any organics the flashlight-headed drones came across, maiming prisoners, or going about other identifiable tasks.

She suspected she should be glad she did not know what the geth were doing, but she was not entirely sure. Fear of the unknown was a powerful factor, and a distracting one. This was doubly so when the unknown was being performed on people she knew, people she cared about.

The chances of anyone getting Marley's distress call were low. They were the only ones in the cluster; no one ever thought Eden Prime would need a garrison for more than show. Eden Prime was safe, secure, firmly controlled by the Alliance...

...that was also what they said about Elysium, and look what happened there. Never trust a politician, especially one with investments in the colony in question.

Besides, Marley's message was a short-band communication, not meant to get out of the system—and there was no chance any vessels were out there. The Alliance might be _en route_, but more likely they were occupied trying to decide what was politically better in the long run: keep the beacon, or share it with everyone else.

She was all for fragging the thing. She hated politics anyway.

Closing her eyes, she leaned against one of Eden Prime's many oversized rocks. Complaints about an agrarian colony having too many rocks long ago ceased to bandy about. Now, there weren't enough rocks behind which to take cover. In a hot zone, you could never have too much cover.

At least she had plenty of ammunition, and three of her teammates left. Four people could do _some_ damage, though she did not hold out hope that they would be able to forestall the inevitable forever. That beacon was officially costing more than it was worth—the fact that she only had three teammates left of her original patrol, and no sign of the rest of the garrison attested to this.

If she got close enough, she'd blow the thing to Kingdom Come. Frag the eggheads. It wasn't worth all these dead scientists, colonists, and marines.

"We've got to get out of here..." Came the thin, shrill murmur from her left.

Williams rolled her eyes. The cavalry was going to ride in, late as usual; anyone could see that. She would be grateful if they did, somehow, manage to show up in the nick of time. Unfortunately for most of the 212, the nick of time had passed.

This was one of those situations a person spent their entire career trying to avoid. It was a no win situation, and therefore to be avoided. She could almost hear the instructor in that hot, sunny classroom droning on about it.

Anyone who had a _gram_ of common sense knew these situations tended to ambush the people who ended up facing them. It was never a question of trying to avoid something, it was a fact that trouble snowballed. There was no _avoidance_ because there was no _warning_

Case and point.

"Bhatia!" Williams hissed. They might be dead meat, but there was no point in giving up. Not to these walking toasters, anyway.

Ten or so feet away, behind another rock, Bhatia looked up, tensing. Behind her, Tanner did the same, his hands clenched about his rifle. If he held it any tighter, he would leave small imprints of his grip.

Private Alpert crowded close to Williams, shaking from head to foot, her eyes wide as she mouthed silently—not unlike a goldfish, Williams thought savagely. But that was why Alpert was with her, and not with Bhatia or Tanner: Williams was the NCO, it was her job to keep Alpert in hand and from doing anything fatally stupid.

"Get _back_, Alpert!" Williams hissed before re-addressing Bhatia. "Your omni-tool working?" Bhatia was the biggest tech-head in the foursome. With everything else going wrong, Williams half expected Bhatia's omni-tool to malfunction. The thought gave a new dimension to the concept of 'morbidly amusing'.

Thankfully, Bhatia's omni-tool blossomed around her arm, casting an amber sheen on her sweaty face. For a long moment she squinted at it, hitting the wrist unit a few times with the heel of her hand before shaking her head. It was with apology and frustration that she gave her attention to Williams. "They're scrambling my readings!"

Unlike Alpert, Bhatia kept a level head. Tanner even more so, as he peered around the rock, keeping an eye open for hostiles. Williams _wished_ Alpert would stop crowding her as heartily as she wished something besides their rifles would work. Biotics made her nervous, but one would be handy to have right about now.

"Gunny—we've got company," Tanner reported hoarsely, ducking out of sight.

There was no soft snarling, no profanities uttered, just a thickening of the atmosphere as the three marines still competent to think and act pulled themselves together for another burst of action—maybe the last one.

Geth gibberish wafted through the air, further alerting the soldiers to the presence of pursuing hostiles. It was hard to tell how many geth were actually present until a visual could be established; geth chatter was as confusing to the ears as regional turian dialects were to a human with a malfunction translator.

The geth did not seem interested in running the marines down quickly so much as forcing them to keep moving. Otherwise the cat-and-mouse game would have ended ages ago.

The geth had the advantage of numbers, of superior firepower, they were in no hurry, so no organic would be overlooked. Yet for all that, they pursued the marines doggedly, flashlight heads alert for any sign of life.


	11. Responsible

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Shepard gazed at the startled face of the late Corporal Jenkins, feeling cold, a little sickened, disappointed, and doubly determined to make this mission a success—for his sake, as well as that of others. It was bad enough to lose a man to a mission before they even closed on the engagement area. It seemed worse to know that the man lost had died on his home soil, without ever seeing the loved ones he had died to protect.

She _knew_ Jenkins had romanticized ideas about riding to the rescue. She tried to nip those ideas in the bud in the cargo bay; most of them were gone by the time Jenkins hit dirt and things began to come home for him. But it wasn't enough.

That was how she processed such deaths: the soldier in question died a hero, fighting the good fight, ready to lay down his life for people he knew, and even more people he didn't—as Jenkins had now done. She had heard or read many things over the years which pegged this line of thought as the easiest thing for a family to hear, the most compassionate thing she could write or say to those grieving people.

It did not absolve her from the fact it was her leadership which had, ultimately, fallen short. She did not wish to be relieved of what was clearly her responsibility.

But when delivering the worst news a family could receive, she could afford to give them some measure of reassurance; if she had a family, and died in action, she would want them to have that sort of reassuring sentiment.

But she had to focus on the living, now, and let the arrangements for the dead happen later. She regarded Jenkins again, forcing herself to accept that this was now just an organic shell, everything that made Jenkins _Jenkins_ was gone.

She still had Alenko, the colonists, and herself to worry about. "We'll see he gets a proper service, but we have our orders. Help me move him." She could not countenance leaving him here, exposed, like a prisoner staked out for carrion birds.

She saw several instances, while fighting on Elysium, where the dead bore evidence of being savaged by scavengers.

"Where do you want him?" Alenko's hoarse tones bore good signs. He was composed, shocked certainly, upset definitely…but he was still composed. She waved at the rocks, wondering how she was supposed to give him directions in battle, when she was not even sure of the terminology she needed to use, with regards to biotic abilities.

Still, it was fascinating, even distracting to watch him gesture to the limp form. It started with a delicate tracery of blue-purple light seeming to outline Alenko's shape before blossoming into an mass effect field, eerily moving and rippling like water.

To her disappointment, his eyes did not turn a matching color. Slowly, Alenko raised a hand.

Jenkins hung like a rag doll in the air, gracefully borne off to one side, and lowered with equal care behind the rocks.

She would have thought this was as easy a task for Alenko as lifting a glass of water, had she not noticed two things: the tension around his eyes, and the worry crease between his eyebrows.

She did not think this task was _difficult_, so much as that this lieutenant was both meticulous and careful not to waste resources. He might need those biotics again for fighting later, and he knew it. Or maybe he did not want to inadvertently damage the body—again, she cursed her lack of knowledge on the subject of biotics, and made a mental note to discreetly or directly correct this ignorance.

There was, of course, no training available to teach regular soldiers how to work with their gifted comrades. Well, that was the military: a lot of what one learned was on the job training. Some things just did not work in a classroom environment.

"If we're going to save this colony, we've got to get the beacon off it—it's what they're here for." It made her sound unfeeling, cold, painfully disconnected from events. However, she was not motivated by a desire to reach the beacon for the sake of science and tech. As far as she was concerned, let whoever have it—the Alliance would be here soon and could deal with them ship-to-ship.

Her determination to save lives and to diffuse the situation had the effect of clamping down on her emotions, forcing her to think logically. She knew firsthand what blind panic could lead to when a situation spiraled out of control. Her position being what it was, she could not afford repercussions like that, since she would not be the one paying the price levied for such a lack of rational thought.

She doubted she could explain to an outsider how what sounded cold and unfeeling was motivated by what Robbins once pegged as compassion. Shepard much preferred '_the rabid desire to mash anyone causing intergalactic unrest_'.

And she was not afraid to shoot the enemy to restore that intergalactic quiescence—except the Alliance had so many rules and regs about when it was appropriate to do so…well, there were few right now. The mission (and vicariously the colonists) took precedence.

The Alliance would forgive much if the beacon was successfully secured. _That_ was genuine cold logic, the assessment of acceptable losses and collateral damages.

Shepard paused their forward progression, kneeling with her shotgun ready. She was not sure what she heard, or if it was just her nerves playing tricks on her. For a long moment she and Alenko stayed down, until the faint pop-pop of gunfire reached her ears.

Shepard glanced back at Alenko, meeting his eyes, before looking behind him. She wished the Jenkins-shaped hole in her perceptions would fill up.

She jerked her head and started off again, the pop-pop becoming louder, guiding them—from the sound of things—towards friendlies under fire.


	12. Implode

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Williams knew, as things began to fall apart, Alpert would be the one to get them killed. Alpert had no sense when it came to when to hide and when to run. As soon as the little private heard the geth-chatter, something snapped.

Alpert ceased to crowd Williams, who did not immediately realize what the sudden surplus of elbow room might mean. They were about to exchange gunfire again, they needed elbow room. For a moment she thought even Alpert could appreciate the need for space when shooting a rifle.

It was the strangled cross between a terrified 'meep' and a sob which told Williams her supposition was wrong. As soon as she heard it, Williams knew they were all dead.

Alpert, driven into a blind panic, broke cover.

"Don't—" Williams shouted, but there was no point.

"Alpert!" Tanner's bark nearly covered Bhatia's cry of 'Lena!'.

The private made it six steps before geth weaponry ripped through her. Alpert hit the ground, stone dead, with blood gushing from the wounds.

Williams could do nothing for Alpert, but she still had Bhatia and Tanner to look after. She leaned out of cover, jerking back as a targeting laser landed centimeters to her right.

Tanner waved, holding up three fingers.

The first geth fell backwards, concentrated barrages of ammunition pounding its shields, then into its metallic body. It jerked before going down, yielding a small, ineffective explosion.

"Keep firing!" Williams dropped to one knee, leaning around the rock.

Geth return fire peppered the outcroppings behind which the marines crouched.

"Holy shit!" The words jumped out of Tanner's mouth, the only warning anyone received that things were about to go from worse to worst.

No one was ready for the shell that landed near Tanner and Bhatia's cover. It was not aimed to kill, but to blast the immediate area clear. It worked in that suddenly Bhatia and Tanner were exposed, their shields drained by rocky debris, leaving them open to geth gunfire.

Silence fell in the wake of screams and ammunition slamming into vulnerable targets. Williams froze, pressed against her rock, the rough grain of it scraping against her armor as she breathed.

Within minutes the geth left, permitting Williams to sidle over to her fallen teammates.

Only Bhatia was still alive, every ounce of strength she had concentrated on not crying out for help. There was nothing Williams could say, nothing Williams could do except kneel there, cradling Bhatia as her dark skin grew pasty…

…and cry once the woman went completely still. It took a great deal of strength on Williams' behalf to get to her feet, mindless of the blood smeared on her armor's plates. Williams shook, unable to get her mind to free itself from the rut into which she had fallen.

She had frozen, as counterproductive a response as any Alpert might have chosen, she _had frozen_. And they'd died, right in front of her, because she had failed to...to do something. _Anything_.

She had never in her life, felt so alone. Irrationally, headlines about Akuze flickered through her mind. She did not want to be another John Sheffler. She did not want her whole squad to have died for nothing. But if she simply sat here—it was tempting to simply sit down and mourn the losses—then they would have.

She _had_ to survive, to make sure the geth got what was coming to them for...for all this. She could _not_ stay here. _Nothing_ would be accomplished if she did. She grabbed her rifle, gazed for a moment in the direction the geth had gone, then took off in the opposite direction.

She could put up a real fight before they got her.

She had not gone far, relatively, when she ran into more geth—geth with human prisoners. The prisoners were not, as she first thought, dead. Some of them twitched feebly, struggled weakly as the geth flopped them onto metal constructs like so many kilos of meat.

She swallowed, dry-mouthed, pursing her lips and bracing herself...

Williams let go of her rifle—and a good chance to ambush the geth with a burst of spray'n'pray—to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop her scream. From beneath one of the twitching humans laid across one of those metal artifacts, a spire twelve feet tall at the least, erupted from beneath him. Raised like a flag on a ship, the mass of flesh and bone hung grotesquely halfway up.

She did not quite conceal her noise. Tactically, there was no chance of success, of saving anyone. Still, in the back of her mind as she slipped quietly away, accusations of cowardice echoed.

Her stifled cry of shock had not gone unnoticed. Geth-chatter was followed by the hum of small propulsion units.

She could not outrun them. The landscape jerked as Willaims sprinted, knowing only that she needed to find some semblance of cover.

The hum overhead indicated small drones—better than their big brothers, but bad enough.

She tripped, slamming into the ground with bone-jarring force. Williams' face twisted into a savage snarl as she brought her rifle up and loosing several three-round bursts, winging one of the drones before finishing it off.

No more running…

The other drone changed altitude…

The drone abruptly stopped, surrounded by a faint bluish light. The drone suddenly crumpled as though caught in an invisible trash compactor before being slammed mercilessly into the ground.

Williams was wrenched to standing then confronted with a brilliant pair of eyes. "Are you okay?" the woman asked forcefully. When Williams did not answer fast enough, "Name and unit!"

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, of the 212." She barely noticed the brawny soldier behind the first, the evident source of what she now knew to be a biotic attack.

It was the most welcome sight Williams had seen for days: a broad red stripe breaking up the black and gray of the woman's armor, a white N7 stenciled near her right shoulder.


	13. Clues

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

"Commander!" Alenko trotted up the short stairway to the staging area. His gut tightened at the sight before him.

Spread-eagle on the ground lay Nihlus in a sticky pool of his own blue blood. Undisturbed by geth, it looked as though perhaps those…husks…or whatever they were had been pawing at him (or, he shuddered, _gnawing _at him).

Shepard reached the top of the steps in two bounds, her eyes finding the source of Alenko's dismay even before he finished his thought.

"It's Nihlus," the biotic gestured with worry. The greater political ramifications had yet to settle on him, but the immediate ones were certainly unpleasant.

"Shit." Shepard stalked over to Nihlus, kneeling by the body. She was, by no means, a coroner, but she had seen her fair share—arguably more than her fair share—of dead bodies. Carefully, _very_ carefully, she turned the turian's ruined head. "Ugh…"

"Oh…gross…" Williams arrived in time to see the turian's brains and blood exposed (and still leaking) from his brow as Shepard turned his head to better see the exit wound.

"Yeah…"

"Doesn't look like anything we've seen so far…" Alenko noted, trying not to smell the odor of turian blood and failing. "First Jenkins now this…"

"You _know _this guy?" Williams demanded.

Shepard answered, but distractedly, "He's a Spectre." Something was not right here.

"_Shit_." Williams looked around. Spectres were bad news, and finding out Commander Shepard was working with one did not bode well. Turians, like civilians, had no place on a military vessel, and that was that. Probably taking notes on all the human tech, too…

"Yeah…look that this," Shepard settled Nihlus' head on the ground, forming a crude 'gun' with her thumb and forefinger. "He was shot by someone shorter than he was. See the angle?"

"Doesn't help us much, ma'am." Alenko shook his head.

"Yes it does." Shepard looked up sharply, before reminding herself that Alenko was not her, and could not be expected to think along the same lines. She had gotten spoiled, apparently, by having Finch, Forbes and Partridge, whom she had trained and who knew how she worked.

And, to an extent, how she thought.

"A Spectre? In the back of the head?" Phrasing it like that left only limited interpretation. The only way _she_ could see a Spectre being shot in the back of the head was if he had his back to his attacker. There was very little cover; having someone get the drop on him was unlikely, and a Spectre had to be even more suspicious than a Traverse-jockey marine.

Which meant he _knew_ the person who shot him. Shepard could not believe it was otherwise; Nihlus struck her as too crafty and canny in his own way to allow such elementary mistakes to get him killed. One did not get to be a Spectre by being dumb, or overly trusting.

Not that she knew what it took to be a Spectre, nor did she care. Council spooks were not her area of expertise, and they did not _operate_ in her area of expertise. Live and let live…

…until now. The morbid humor was not lost on her.

"Yeah…that's a mark of stupid for anyone," Williams answered bluntly, taking in the lack of cover in the direction the bullet had to come from.

Still, it was disgusting. The slug went into the turian's head small, but came out considerably bigger. _In like a penny, out like a pizza_, to quote Gunnery Chief Ellison.

"You know," Shepard scowled at the turian's back, "that beacon is going to end up as a smoking heap of _scrap_…"

"I don't think that'd constitute 'mission successful', ma'am." It was a joke, and Alenko half-expected it to fall flat on its face.

"Heh," Williams leaned forward. "I've got a grenade left." It sounded good to her: it was time to just frag the thing. If the Council wanted to horn in, they should have sent a better delegation. Or better yet: the Alliance should have had a bigger force on the ground…

…though this bitter thought was quickly countered by memory of how the geth had cut through the forces originally preset. Would more soldiers really have made a difference? And that _ship_. That squid-like leviathan…she shivered, not wanting to know what that _thing_ might be able to do to a warship—any warship.

Shepard sighed, getting to her feet. "Come on. We shouldn't hang around here." She did not point out 'Nihlus wouldn't want us to stay'. It sounded far too cheesy, hinting at an understanding that did not exist. There was nothing they could do for the turian except carry on.

"You've got that right," Alenko muttered under his breath. At least this team would not be taken unawares from behind. Three marines with eyes open, fighting the urge to act like jumpy civilian pukes did not make for easy targets.

Williams got to her feet, taking a few tentative steps in the only direction anyone could have gone. Thank goodness for that—a one-way path meant they could look for the beacon at the alternate landing site _and_ find out who was shooting people in the back.

She did not mind doing it in battle, or even to prevent one…but sneaking up on someone and shooting them in the back at point-blank or close to point-blank range was _cheap_. It didn't matter who you were.

As she scanned the area, her skin crawled. It had nothing to do with sweat beading on her face and slipping down her skin, either. It was a general bad feeling of getting into something way over her head, something she was running headlong into.

Like a green recruit, she thought sourly.

She heard it rather than saw it, a faint knock and sounds of shuffling. So confronted, and in a situation like this, she reacted accordingly, leveling her rifle. "There! Behind those crates!" She barked, the sounds of Shepard and Alenko's weapons charging in a welcome chorus behind her.


	14. Out Cold

Beta-ready by Saberlin.

-J-

"_Normandy_? This is Shepard. Beacon secure." Habitually, Shepard scanned the immediate area, in case anything else wanted to pop up and start shooting. Shooting geth was, she reflected, psychologically easier than neutralizing organics.

Prothean scribbles running over all the surfaces of the glowing beacon, towards which Alenko edged. The last time humanity found something like this, it opened up a new age for the species.

Williams watching the beacon with skepticism, rifle at the ready, her dark eyebrows knitting together.

"Unbelievable…" Actual _working_ Prothean technology. He grinned at the beacon. Any tech would give his right arm with his omni-tool still _attached_ to work with something like this.

It wasn't doing _anything_ like this when they dug it up. The change from inert to active made Williams jumpy. She turned to the Commander, who made a mild crack to whoever was on the commlink.

Alenko did not notice the tug of the beacon, a physical _tug_, until it was too late.

"Right Joker. Ground team standing by." The Council was not going to like losing one of their Spectres; at least they still had the beacon in one piece. "That was the _Normandy_," Shepard announced to Williams, catching the other woman's inquiring gaze. "They'll be swinging down to…" she stopped, distracted by a flicker of motion.

At first, Shepard thought Alenko was taking a closer look at the beacon. Goodness knew _she_ wanted to. It was the one flicker of _resistance_ as he moved that caught her attention, making her realize something was _dragging_ him towards it.

And he couldn't get loose.

Pushing past Williams, Shepard recklessly sprinted forward. She cleared the distance, seized Alenko about the torso and pivoted, throwing him to the ground with colossal effort.

It was like trying to throw the _Mako._ However, gravity worked as it should, allowing physics to take over.

Alenko hit the ground rolling.

Shepard reeled, off balance now that her counterweight was gone. It took a split-second for her to realize she too, now struggled against an inexplicable drag asserted by the beacon. The involuntary step taken to send Alenko sprawling seemed to have locked her into the thing's gravity well.

She fought tooth and nail against the pull, but it was like iron trying to fight magnetic attraction. A surge of real, unadulterated fear, bordering on panic ran through her. The green light around the beacon trembled and caught her gaze, sending searing tendrils of pain exploding into her mind through her eyes.

A hum in her bones, previously unnoticed, changed to pulsating vibration, matching the light's throb. Suddenly, it seemed as though someone had yanked her into the air, leaving her dangling helplessly as if from an unseen fist. She mouthed a soundless scream, eyes riveted open. Images flickered, burned, and blazed through her mind, pain clawing through it alongside them.

Alenko watched in horror as Shepard rose, levitated feet above the ground. "Shepard!" He tried to lunge forward, but Williams latched onto him, a clumsy but effective restraint, landing them both in a disorganized heap.

"No don't!" Williams shouted unmercifully into Alenko's ear, gaping in horror. Although Shepard's struggle against the beacon seemed interminable to Shepard, it took only a few seconds for the on-looking marines—less time than it took to react past absolute horror.

Both watched mutely as Shepard began to shake, convulsing as if in the midst of a seizure. It only lasted a few more moments, before Shepard gave an audible whimper of pain, oddly magnified by the situation. With a dazed exhale, Shepard went limp, gracefully suspended in the air, boneless as a ragdoll, clearly out cold.

For a split second she hung, a bizarre parody of a marionette. Suddenly her omni-tool exploded around her wrist, just as the beacon itself exploded. Cast mercilessly to the ground, Shepard skidded a few feet with a crunch of armor plates before coming to rest in a tangled heap. Except for shallow, labored breathing she scarcely moved.

Alenko regained his feet as he and Williams both rushed over. Gently disentangling Shepard from her own limbs, none of which seemed broken, Alenko settled her on her back. Shepard's head lolled to one side, her neck also mercifully not broken. At least she looked a little more comfortable, now she no longer lay wadded up like a damp towel.

Yet her face remained drawn, as if in the grips of a bad dream, her eyes flickering beneath their lids.

"Is she okay…?" It was impossible to check the commander's pulse, given all the armor between said checkpoints and someone else's fingers, and the only exposed portion of her arm was burned, so Williams did not want to touch it.

"I dunno…" Alenko found the catches on the back of Shepard's helmet and pulled it off.

She did not look remotely tough, out cold as she was. She looked fragile, fragile and in pain. Migraine-grade pain. She still shook as if from cold, though she was as sweaty as the rest of them. For a moment, Alenko barely saw a gleam of the whites of her eyes as they flickered partially open before he gently pulled the lids the rest of the way closed.

Alenko cued his comlink. "_Normandy_, this is Alenko…Joker, cut the crap we've got a man down. What's your ETA?" He had medigel, but was not sure what he could really do for her. Who knew what Prothean technologies could do, when activated…?

_Activated by an _idiot, he added mercilessly. He fell back on his secondary training, applying medigel to the burn on Shepard's wrist, inflicted when her omni-tool blew. The small explosion had, inexplicably, singed through the mesh in places.

He hated feeling helpless. Even more, he hated having done something so _stupid_. Since when did you walk up to alien technology and try to touch it? That sort of stupidity had gotten thousands, _millions_ of people killed throughout history: 'I just wanted to see what would happen'.

_Great one, Kaidan. One of your best._


	15. Tears

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams took a deep breath as she stepped into one of the shower units on the SSV _Normandy_. Dr. Chakwas finally got fed up with Alenko and Williams hanging around the medbay and made them both leave for a few hours.

No offense to the El-Tee but he looked like someone had rubbed his face into the mat.

She could understand why, but could not help thinking that, if Shepard survived, she had made the right choice. Both Williams and Alenko saw what that beacon did to Shepard's omnitool. What could it have done to a biotic's headjack? Or his amp?

She had no desire to see if human brains, once free of the skull, really did look like gray jelly.

But the usually flippant synopsis did not help. Williams stripped down, turning on the hot water. She put her face in the hot stream, wishing this was a Hollywood shower. They were in transit, so water-saving practices were in effect.

As she scrubbed, her mind started to go numb. Maybe it was numb all along, and she just now noticed. Things seemed different with action abated, and while in a relatively safe environment. Eden Prime was like a cheap, bad film, passing before her mind's eye in a succession of fragmented, flickering frames.

You could not be a marine for any real length of time these days and not lose someone you knew. About half that number knew loss as the 'loss a friend' instead of 'loss of a casual acquaintance'—it was probably higher. Then there were the really unlucky ones, like John Sheffler and Williams herself who lost their entire unit.

Bam. Gone.

The ease with which the geth wiped out the 212 staggered her, but more than that, it made her mad. It was not enough for the geth to slaughter organics, they had to…to _pervert_ them, turn them into zombies.

Faith was something from which she derived strength, but that did not mean it was easy to maintain it at all times. Right now, she had to wonder about The Big Plan, if it required the wiping-out of her unit. Yes, they were in better hands, and she knew it. But _she_ was _here_.

It was just another reminder that the galaxy was not a fair place or that sometimes good things happened to good people, and bad things to bad people. And sometimes bad things happened to good people and, unfortunately, vice-versa. She sighed heavily, content to mull over the deaths, hoping someday she could look back, knowing some good came of them.

She wanted, partly for her own sake, to keep track of those good things and lay them like flowers on the graves of her fellow soldiers. Comrades-in-arms. Friends.

Then, she continued bitterly, there was a Spectre, and another turian Spectre who'd presumably lost any marbles he ever had.

And Dr. Chakwas wasn't saying _anything_ about Shepard past 'the Commander is in stable condition and holding'. Williams found Dr. Chakwas almost impossible to argue with. The firm presence of the doctor dominated the medbay—you were in _her_ space, and _she_ was in charge.

In fact…Dr. Chakwas was a little scary like that. Fight with her, and you _would_ lose.

Williams turned off the water, leaning on her forearm against the wall, her eyes out of focus, making the tiles on the shower wall do funny things. The air of the shower area began to cool, raising gooseflesh on her skin. At this time of day, no one else would be in here, which meant complete and total privacy—not something easily found on a ship this small.

And she wanted privacy because her eyes stung, and her throat had pulled tight. She could admit that sometimes tears were necessary, that they helped…but that did not mean she wanted anyone to see her crying. Tears attracted attention, and Williams did not want that kind of attention.

Her skin refused to take the cold gracefully, so she wrapped up in her towel, and sat down on one of the benches in the changing area, hunched over, elbows on her knees. She could see their faces before her eyes, knew several had children—young children—that Nirali was _so close_ to getting out and starting that restaurant.

Poor Samesh…

The tears stalled, frustrating Williams further. She wrapped her fingers in her wet, tangled hair, pulling until her scalp protested. It was so mortally unfair. She could not take being stuck between tears and the blind groping for a _why _of it all. She stood up, grabbed the nearest thing to her—her bottle of lotion—and hurled it the length of the room.

The bottle slammed into the ground, bouncing back off the far wall, leaving a white, viscous trail. She swallowed again, watching the milky contents oozing slowly, before cursing her own stupidity for having broken the bottle at all.

It was something about watching the lotion pooling, so unlike blood, so unlike synthetic fluids, that did it. Her eyes stung again. After a gulp that hurt and a shallow gasp, her face twitched then crumpled. She threw herself down onto the bench again, digging the heels of her hands into her now brimming eyes.

Parents. Wives. Husbands. Brothers, sisters, sons, daughters…all dead.

And she wasn't. She survived when they had not. It seemed a shameful thing.

Williams clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that leapt from out from her as tears splashed down her cheeks. The question '_why me_?' screamed in her ears. Her lungs protested; her skin turned clammy and cold as grief, unmitigated grief, slammed into her like a tidal wave. In some ways it was better than that numb state…but in other ways she would have preferred the numbness.

There was no good alternative, either way, but in all honesty, she would choose the tears. Tears would vent the anguish, the rage, the raw emotions making a painful knot in her chest.


	16. Eyes

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard shivered, her fingers and toes extremely cold, which made all the rest of her cold as well. She could not remember hurting _this_ much since boot camp, since '_sadist maximus_' Instructor Mike Yamada taught hand-to-hand combat…at least, that was what he _said_ he was doing. Most of the students thought he was simply sadistic, and found that serving as an instructor in the Alliance's Marine Corps fit with his idea of amusing.

After another moment of reflection she shook her head; her neck ached as she moved. Scratch that, not even Yamada _ever_ put her in this kind of pain. He _was_ a sadist—so she and most of her class averred—but he dropped you fast and did not draw things out.

She had never felt this much pain, not all at once. Not even after Elysium, hobbling around on a bad ankle…

Most of the pain was in her head, as though someone had taken forks and tried to dig her eyeballs out, leaving the forks in place when the angle proved wrong for whatever reason.

_No sadistic instructors, so what the…?_

The same pain also nested in the back of her skull, near where her spinal cord and brain hooked up. The thumping of the pain kept time, she realized belatedly, with her own pulse. Which meant she was certainly still alive…

_Oh man…I think I'm going to _live…

This decided, she stirred feebly, groaning as she tried to figure out where, exactly, she was. She certainly was not sprawling on the ground—the surface upon which she did lay shifted a little, soft enough to cradle an inert body. There was a sheet draped across her, so she was _definitely_ not outside. It did not smell like outside either, with the stinging smell of medigel and alcohol hanging like ghosts in the air.

Medbay. Where? Eden Prime or aboard the _Normandy_?

Her headache intensified as she tried to force herself to move down the list of where she _could_ be. Well, she _hurt, she _was confused, disoriented, and this was obviously a medical facility…so there _should_ be a doctor…

"Ugh…" This time she made a real sound, instead of her thoughts simply echoing between her ears. Her throat did not scratch or ache, so she had not screamed it raw…but she could not remember exactly _what_ happened to land her in medical care, but she thought she ought to have been screaming about something.

This lack of memory was…disturbing. Disturbing was a good word.

Blearily, Shepard realized the reason she could not see was not because she had gone blind. She simply had not opened her eyes. She, and they, were in too much pain to open them without conscious effort. She forced her eyes to open slowly, braced to squint in the ubiquitous over-bright lights, which accompanied all medical facilities.

_Normandy_. She was aboard the _Normandy_, which meant Dr. Chakwas was around somewhere.

Her squinting peep at the world shifted to fully open eyes, the better to take in the phenomenon greeting her official return to consciousness.

Brown eyes. Beautiful, warm brown eyes with very long dark lashes, peered concernedly down at her…what a thing to wake up to! Definitely nicer than the bright lights that usually shone from medbay ceilings. She hated those lights, meant to check that pupils pinpointed properly. Or to ensure that if a patient did not have a headache upon waking, they had one before they were released. The rest of the environment blurred, but the eyes at least seemed hyper-magnified.

Shepard blinked, expecting her vision to suddenly clear, but the eyes stayed put, blinking back at her.

So, not a hallucination. Good. Very good. She did _not_ want to go in for psych evaluations…

It took work not to smile stupidly. _What_ a thing to wake up to…she could not place the eyes, so maybe she _was_ dead…if so, this was not so bad. Not bad at all. Or maybe she was out of her reckoning as to where she was. A knock to the head could do that…

"Doctor? Dr. Chakwas? I think she's waking up."

Her pleasant musing shattered, as her urge to smile stupidly vanished. She knew that voice. Alenko…it made sense then, even to the somewhat woozy Shepard, that the eyes were probably his too.

Good thing she had not gone with her instincts to smile pleasantly if a little stupidly up at him.

Must be drugs…had to be drugs. Still…the fact that Staff Lieutenant K. Alenko had beautiful eyes lodged itself stubbornly into the back of her mind.

Forcing herself to think, she closed her eyes again, rebuilding her composure and fishing for events.

Oh yeah…the beacon…something went wrong with it…events began to spin and untangle as this one solid fixture in her world served as an anchor for the last few minutes before she woke up here.

She opened her eyes again, closer to her right state of mind as the fog crept away from her vision, the rest of Alenko's face swimming above her own, concern stamped across his features.

Footsteps vibrated through the table upon which Shepard lay, and Alenko's brown eyes were replaced with the eyes and silver hair of Dr. Chakwas. Not a fair tradeoff, but probably best in the long run.

Did they have her on painkillers? Strong ones? Oh, Shepard hated painkillers.

"Heya, doc." Shepard mumbled, her tongue numb and stupid.

"Welcome back," Dr. Chakwas declared blandly.

Over the much older woman's shoulder, Alenko continued peering down at Shepard as she recovered her faculties. Now her eyes were open, she gave the impression of shrugging off the…incident…(the random act of stupidity, he added acidly) fairly quickly. Still, he could not deny that while most everyone accepted the color of Shepard's eyes as a little odd…you never realized _how_ odd until you found yourself unexpectedly confronted with them. The color was rather unnerving, during that first moment after she opened them.

Had she had them genetically modified?


	17. Fog

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard had little patience when it came to her needing anything more from a medbay than a quick once-over, a couple tubes of medigel, or perhaps some standard-issue headache relievers. She was a marine, pain was part of life in general so why clog up the medbay?

Unfortunately, she was doing just that: clogging up the medbay, while the doctor clogged her up with treatments and 'suggestions' which were really inviolate orders. As reassuring as it was to have a doctor who knew how to handle stubborn patients, it was not comforting when it came to the lingering mental fog—only half of which was drug-induced.

Dr. Chakwas cast her a knowing look. "I'm going to give you some very good advice."

"All right," Shepard eased herself up onto one of the medical tables. Pain pounded behind her right eye and near the base of her skull.

The knock to the head hurt too.

And her neck steadfastly refused to pop.

"Don't flush your pills down the toilet; take them regularly."

"I can't _think_ through this fog!" Shepard protested feebly. The spike in annoyance made the pain worse.

Dr. Chakwas faced the Commander. Despite the fact that Shepard outranked her, the head physician on any boat held a certain amount of clout. When it came to anything medical, even a Captain tended to acquiesce quietly. Dr. Chakwas spent enough time in her career wrangling marines that Shepard was no tougher to deal with than any other. Better, in some ways, because Shepard wanted to get better _quickly_ and was less likely to resist the painkillers—and they were very low dose—if a firm word was put in her ear.

"The fog will clear faster if you don't need the pills. And these _are_ the lowest effective doses."

"Oh…" _That_ was why she hurt so much. "…thanks."

"You're very welcome. I can increase..."

"No," Shepard answered quickly, remembering not to shake her head. "I'm okay. Just a bump on the head—nothing worth all this fuss."

So said the woman who could hardly walk a straight line, Dr. Chakwas thought. "Hold still." She picked up a monitor from her workspace and stuck it to Shepard's head, the semicircular metal implement adhering gently to the Commander's skin.

"Brain damage?" Shepard could not keep the concern out of her voice.

"No, we'd have registered it already. I just want to make sure you're back in the usual levels."

Shepard took a slow, deep breath. She hated the adhesive these things used, being mildly allergic to it. She rested her elbows on her knees, using her hands to block out the world. The fog in her mind muffled thought, but also muffled the strange vision from the beacon.

It was not like a nightmare, over and then fading: it repeated, itself perniciously leaving a lingering sense of dread and desperation. The vision was what, she decided, left her brain feeling like wet, shredded cardboard.

She did not doubt the vision would be as clear as mud once the fog cleared, which coupled with natural fear of the unknown promised more restless nights.

What _was_ it? And worse, they were going to tell the Council—the bigwigs on the galactic stage—she'd had a bad dream. She could see the counter-arguments now: given her personal history, it was unsurprising she was cracking under the strain of a taxing career, blah blah-blah, blah-blah…

"I can take that off you, now," Dr. Chakwas announced a moment later.

Shepard straightened, but did not reach to peel the implement off. Medical staff were touchy like that. Dr. Chakwas gentled it off, handing Shepard a small tube of gel to rub on the irritated skin.

"Thanks." The fog made it hard to get the lid off, but Shepard managed, wobbling over to the nearest surface in which she could see her reflection to apply the cooling gel. "Should I still be wobbling around like this?"

"That _was_ quite a knock to the head. You're still exhibiting some symptoms of concussion, but nothing worse than that. It should wear off soon—but if you're worried…"

"I'm not worried." Shepard meant it, the sincerity showed in her tone. "It's just embarrassing to hobble about like...things that go 'hob'."

Dr. Chakwas nodded. It was good enough. "A sense of humor is good to have—keep that. I also recommend you take it easy for another couple days—no more firefights."

"Come on, doc, I don't go looking for these things, they just…follow me. Like magnets to a metal bar." Trouble _did_ seem to follow her, and more so than could be usual for anyone with bad luck. She was not sure which it was, bad luck that trouble followed her, or good luck in that she walked—or rather hobbled—away from the worst of it.

Maybe they balanced each other out.

"All the same," Dr. Chakwas was not to be distracted. "How's the fog in your head?"

Shepard did not ask how Dr. Chakwas knew; doubtless the woman saw enough in her stint with the Alliance to know what went on in a jarhead's head. Shepard had to smile at this; some would argue there was nothing in there in the first place, so they shouldn't _have _these problems. But that usually came from other branches. "Still kind of thick, but I can think." It took effort, but anything worth doing did.

"Good. If it gets worse, _tell me_." The doctor pointed at Shepard to impress the necessity of this. It might have looked comical had anyone else done it.

Yes, the doctor was quite serious. Force of habit, and not wanting to know how far luck had carried her, kept Shepard from asking how bad the concussion was. She wasn't bleeding, she was conscious, and she was regaining motor function. What more could she ask for?

…unless it be that the fog would diminish further. She was not so possessed of mental prowess that she could afford to lose much.


	18. Gloom

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard could not escape the palpable gloom twining in the _Normandy's _air like a particularly persistent cat, bent on getting the attention of anyone and everyone. It slithered like smoke near the ceiling, and crept like fog near the floor. It crept through doors and insinuated itself into the very fibers of the crew members' psyches.

Jenkins was, in some ways, more noticeable in his very absence than when he had been a fixture in the crew. Williams was not half so conspicuous in her presence. But that was what loss did, Shepard thought grimly, made you realize what was once there.

She did not feel so strongly about Nihlus, though she refused to show any sympathy to the crew's undertone that it was the Spectre's fault. They seemed content to blame it on Nihlus, since Spectres attracted trouble, and it was Spectre-grade trouble the team had run into. It was a Spectre mission, and his mission killed one of their crewmates. No one pitied Nihlus for taking a bullet to the back of the head.

Everyone pitied Jenkins, whom his CO had permitted to go first.

But there was no fallout, no blowback directed at Shepard herself. No blame, no finger-pointing. It seemed common consensus that she had done what she could, as much as she could—as much as anyone could—and it only went to show that she was human.

Lack of blame did not help alleviate the gloom in the air, in fact it made it worse.

She wished there _was_ blame and finger-pointing in her direction. After all, she blamed herself. She _let him go first_. She should have been the one to take point; her place was at point. It made things worse that people were glad they had not lost her as well. As if her nearly dying (she argued she had _not_ nearly died, just taken a knock to the head, though she did not argue it out loud) somehow made losing Jenkins not so tragic. It gave them something to be grateful for, that two thirds of the team came home alive.

But they were not the ones writing home to Jenkins' mother and father. They were not the ones who had put that boy in his flag-draped coffin. It was her. It all came down to her. Shepard stood, leaning against the Mako with arms crossed, eyeing the encapsulated bodies. The _Normandy _had picked up more than just her knocked-out self. They had picked up the bodies of their dead, crated them up for transport.

As for the beacon…it was broken, no longer the treasure trove it was once supposed to be. So it stayed, where human scientists could pick at the rubble. She shivered, glad it was behind her. She still felt an odd creeping sensation between her shoulder blades, unlike anything she had ever felt there before.

If the garage crew had not been present, though giving her a wide berth, she would have spoken to the empty air. Told Jenkins she was sorry it had happened like this. That she had failed him, as his commanding officer, as his ground team lead. That she was sorry—though what being sorry about it could do…

She could not even comfort herself that it was the thought which counted.

Alenko appeared in the garage, surprised to find Shepard leaning against the Mako, head bowed, eyes closed. She almost looked as though she was in prayer. He was inclined to think she might be, until she opened her eyes, having heard his footsteps, and nodded her head in recognition of his presence.

Alenko settled against the front quarter panel. He stood by his earlier argument: she had done everything right, and it really was bad luck. "Jenkins was a good kid." Could it get any more clichéd and awful than that?

"It's a crying shame." Shepard could not quite keep the bitterness out of her voice. "So, since you knew him," she shifted so she had Alenko and the encapsulated bodies in her range of vision.

Alenko's mouth twitched. He was not in the habit of grand biotic demonstrations, but he remembered getting so irritated with the kid's pestering he finally gave Jenkins what was supposed to be a nudge…but he overdid it. Jenkins' assessment of the experience made up for the embarrassment of having provided too forceful a demonstration. "He was enthusiastic. Persistent. Didn't know the meaning of 'get lost'."

Shepard gave a snort, but did not question the statement. "Definitely enthusiastic." Hadn't she told herself, repeatedly, to keep a close eye and a tight rein on Jenkins? Bad enough to die like that on an alien world. Worse still to die like that coming back to save your own.

She had to pull herself out of the gloom, not for her sake, but for that of others. It was her job, as an officer, to be the boosting effort, the strengthening element. Capt. Anderson called the plays, she made sure his men got to where they needed to be. It was her job, and she was used to doing her job to the highest degree of excellence she could muster.

She knew Williams was taking a lot of things hard, and had permitted the woman some time to pull herself together. But the time was, unfortunately, rapidly approaching when Williams would need her game face on. Shepard wished it was not so, that there was proper time to grieve for the dead, but life was painfully unfair. "I should go," Shepard pushed herself off the Mako. "Hang in there, Lieutenant."

"You too." Alenko watched Shepard's expression grow calm, neutral, collected. It was like watching cracks in dry earth fuse together in a much-needed rain.

Shepard took a deep breath. "Thanks, Lieutenant." Usually she was the one advocating for others. It was rare to hear the same advocacy in her direction.

Alenko nodded once, his eyes drifting back to Jenkins, echoes of 'that was awesome!' ringing in his ears.


	19. Words

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard did not enjoy the trip to the Citadel. Her mental fog cleared, but this did nothing to alleviate the many emotional hazes coloring the atmosphere on the _Normandy_. Losing Jenkins hit the crew hard, as anyone could see.

Shepard felt she ought to bear the brunt of the survivor's guilt, but knew such things were not fair in dispersal. She could see, without assistance, that Lt. Alenko felt it. She did not know him well enough to know if the overabundance of creamer in his coffee was normal or not. It seemed as though he lost count of how many he put in, but until directly addressed he seemed closed off, in his own little world.

Williams was worse, both in terms of guilt and her reaction to it. Her entire unit was gone, wiped out, and there was nothing she could have done, nothing she could do _now_. It resulted in an agitation she worked hard to overcome, and a certain prickliness of attitude bordering on unapproachable.

Shepard weighed her priorities. She had an obligation to do what she could, and for the first time she wished Sheffler was here. _He_ would know how to deal with Willaims' kind of survivor's guilt if anyone did, poor fellow.

She headed gamely through the _Normandy _to track down Williams.

Williams sat at the bench facing the master at arms' station, working almost obsessively. Between one thing and another she felt keyed up, angry, guilty, unsettled, and generally unsociable. She was, on one level, glad to find herself in space, assigned to the _Normandy_ and not just until they could get her back to her home port.

But it had cost something. She mentioned it to Shepard earlier, but had not wanted to discuss it much. No, she was sure she wanted to keep her deepest thoughts on the whole Eden Prime scenario to herself.

Was her ticket to a shipside posting worth all those lives? It was not. And Bhatia was almost out…

"So this is where you holed up…don't bother, I'm off duty." Shepard waved for Williams to abandon formalities, but not fast enough for Williams to avoid slamming her knee into the table as she made to stand up.

"Oh… right," Williams sank back onto the bench, unnerved and with an aching knee. Her discomfort grew as Shepard stepped over the bench and sat down, giving Williams a good look at her profile. It occurred to her that Shepard knew what it was to lose men in a fight—to lose lots of people all at once. She could not find the words to ask, how someone dealt with that.

On Eden Prime there were things she could shoot at, and feel no remorse. Now she just felt...hollow; what was not hollow was cold. "Anyone told you it's not your fault?" Shepard asked, her voice very low so as not to carry.

Williams put her elbows on the table, resting her forehead against her clasped hands. "Capt. Anderson did. And the Lieutenant." They meant well, but the words did not take root in her heart. They weren't _there _when the 212 got hit—though she did not blame _them _for the unit's decimation. From where she stood, the _Normandy_ team's mission was successful: the geth pushed back, the colony saved…though she did not forget that the actual mission, recovering the beacon, was not achieved.

"It didn't help, did it?"

Williams gave a low, bitter laugh. "Nice of them to say so, though."

Shepard nodded in agreement.

"Can I ask..." Williams couldn't finish the sentence.

"Speak freely." Shepard turned, giving the gunnery chief her full attention.

"How did you...how did you cope? With the losses, I mean?" Let Shepard interpret it how she wanted.

"Not well. It doesn't really matter what I or anyone else tells you, Williams, it's not going to make the guilt go away. All I can do is tell you that from a tactical standpoint it wasn't your fault. _I_ don't consider it your fault."

Williams gave a hoarse chuckle. A little depressing, but painfully honest. She could appreciate 'from a tactical standpoint', and Shepard was right that it was not easier to bear when people told her it was not her fault. But it _did_ help to hear that someone on an individual level did not think it was her fault. "That's…great advice, Commander."

"Happy to help."

"Any idea what we're doing next?" Williams fiddled with a screwdriver, disliking the sudden silence.

Shepard _did_ know what they were doing next, but did not think it prudent to tell Williams so she dodged the question altogether. "I'm not exactly sure what the Captain has up his sleeve—but he's got something." Shepard snorted, fingering a dent in the table. "Whoever's responsible for that mess better hope he covered his tracks…" Spectre or not, turian badass or not.

"I'd love to be there to help," Williams added vengefully, in no question about the subject of Shepard's ire.

"I wouldn't let _that_ take root, if I were you. It's a weed that's hard to kill if it does. Get mad, but get it out of your system."

Williams recognized the voice of experience, and did not want to tell it to go swallow its tongue. She did not _want _to wait, to be patient, or to calm down—never mind how Shepard studiously avoided any of those words.

Still…she cast a sidelong look at Shepard, once again examining the tabletop, looking pensive. Well, maybe it was not just her bad day. It might well be Shepard's, in in more ways than one.

Scuttlebutt painted a scenario with a dead Spectre, a failed mission, a destroyed Prothean artifact, Williams' own wiped-out unit, a dead crewman…and _someone_ had to take the brunt of alien displeasure, and the Alliance's disappointment…she hoped these two massive forces' combined ill feeling would not land on Shepard's shoulders.

"Well…we did what we could," Williams finally had to admit.

"And we'll see where it goes."


	20. Scar

Author's Note: All right, this one takes a bit of preface, since we're dealing with quarian biology, and I feel there's an issue needing address. Newton's First uses the ME1 quarian background: as such, environmental suits are physical protection outside the flotilla—we all agree there.

On the flotilla they are (to refer to the ME1 wiki entry, no longer available) the suits serve more as a psychological buffer than anyone else (it is, after all, supposed to be pretty crowded): otherwise it raises the question of how Tali's mother could have died from an airborne virus when she should have been sealed off from the environment. (I know there may have been extenuating circumstances, but if there were they were not mentioned.)

Outside the flotilla, clean rooms and other completely sterile, sealed-off environments (with all visitors using proper breathmask and d-con procedures) are also relatively safe. Treat her tirade at Shepard on the Alarei as emotional duress, subject to some exaggeration.

Otherwise, Tali would spend quite a bit of time on the _Normandy_, and probably never see whatever's groundside. I am _not_ negating everything stated in ME2; I'm merely working to blend the two chunks of information together so they form a cohesive whole.

Thank you for your understanding,

~Raven Studios

-J-

Beta-read by the most excellent Saberlin, whose efforts on behalf of this story—particularly playing devil's advocate for the above-mentioned liberties taken and making sure my logic jives—are fantastic.

-J-

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya shivered in the clean room as she detached her helmet. It hissed as her suit depressurized. As she shrugged out of it, she grit her teeth in pain. The omnigel patch still held, but flesh was not so easy to repair—and there was still the matter of the bullet lodged in her side.

The quarian shivered as the cold air pressed against her delicately pale skin, glad to settle on the medical table. Thank goodness clinics had clean rooms in the first place. Pain pounded with every heartbeat through Tali's body, her head aching with adrenaline and fear.

She had never been shot before, or even shot _at_, and the experience left her absolutely terrified. Who expected that sort of thing on the Citadel? Tali rubbed the heel of her hand against her eyes, trying to alleviate the pressure as Dr. Michel stepped through d-con, dressed head to foot in white, masked and hooded.

Tali shivered again, this time from intense vulnerability. A quarian spent most of their life in an environmental suit. Taking it off, even in light of needing medical assistance was like a turtle willingly abandoning its shell.

On top of that, the wound continued to gush, glisten and gape. Tali never saw such a wound before, much less one inflicted upon _her_ person. It would surely leave a nasty scar.

"I'm going to give you a painkiller, now," Dr. Michel announced, producing the necessary syringe. Tali nodded, closing her eyes. Even with the pain of the bullet wound she hated needles, and wished there was a better way. A sharp sting, and the pain began to dull. Before now, it hurt worse when she moved than when she held as still as possible, but it also hurt worse without the pressure of her tight environmental suit, however compromised.

Was she going to get sick? For an immunity-deficient quarian, anywhere was like a public restroom, an _unwashed_, unmaintained public restroom. The ignominy of dying of a turian cold after surviving a gunshot made Tali nauseous.

Or maybe it was the pain. Or the painkillers. Either way, her head started to swim, but not unpleasantly, and she was only half-mindful when Dr. Michel prompted her to lie back. The doctor's cold, gloved fingers tugged back the thin, fitted top Tali wore to protect her skin from her environmental suit.

Tali's excitement at setting off into the galaxy on her own had quite worn off by this point, and not even the mind easing haze of painkillers could put the bloom back on the flower of independence. The galaxy was, she decided, a rotten place full of rotten people. The geth were bad enough, but the organics were worse.

Not completely, but pain, even detached pain, put her in neither an angelic mood, nor a mood in which to be fair to others.

Her luminous green eyes drifted to her omnitool, lying on the floor, neatly set atop her clumsily folded suit. Who would have thought one memory core would cause so many problems?

She barely registered Dr. Michel explaining how she would now numb the affected area—Tali was glad it was local anesthetic. She did not want to go to sleep _here_ for fear she would never wake up. If someone decided to storm the clinic, she would like to have opportunity to run…or shoot back, though the idea did not appeal to her.

But as death was even less appealing, she knew in what order her options listed.

"What happened to you?"

"I was shot." Tali knew full well this was not the answer Dr. Michel was looking for…but with things going as they were, perhaps it was better for the human not to know. "I was looking for a safe place to hide." True, but not true. Tali hissed as she watched the instrument with which Dr. Michel meant to remove the bullet sink into her damaged body. It was surreal and vaguely disturbing to watch Dr. Michel carefully poking about with and wiggling the instrument, but to feel no pain.

"To hide?"

Tali nodded.

"Well, it is safe enough here…"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, but I disagree." Tali spoke as respectfully as she could—not just because Dr Michel was still poking about for the bullet—but because she did not wish to be insulting. Despite several more attempts by Dr. Michel to elicit information about the circumstances leading to the injury, Tali remained unhelpful, though appreciative of the doctor's assistance.

Tali's stomach twisted as Dr. Michel drew out the small bullet, glistening with blood. Tali let her head flop back as the doctor began the process of patching her up. Thank goodness medigel did not need to be changed regularly. Finding a safe place in which to do so would be…difficult. Almost impossible, without coming back here.

Dr. Michel sighed as Tali, upon receiving instruction to do so, sat up. "You weren't involved in anything…"

"Illegal?" Tali finished when the doctor broke off, moving gingerly for her suit. The drugs still had her brain swirling like water down a drain. "No…I just…know too much…" She closed her eyes. Blast these drugs—they made idiots out of everybody. Tali bit her tongue, hoping the pain would keep her mind somewhat focused as she dragged on her suit, heedless of the blood on her shirt and trousers. What could she do about it?

Nothing.

Dr. Michel watched the quarian struggle to get her suit up around her shoulders. "If it is information you would be willing to trade…I could put you in contact with someone. They might be able to arrange a safe place for you…"

"How? With whom?" Tali pulled her helmet on, the hiss comforting her. The galaxy and all its nastiness was suddenly separated from her by a thick layer of environmental suit. Even so, the thought lingered in her mind: this would leave the nastiest scar she had ever seen. Thank goodness few people would ever see it.


	21. Magic

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard, freshly showered and ready to hit the rack, dragged herself into the quiet mess to find Alenko steadily plowing through enough dinner for two. For a moment she had to think about it, but her (painfully short) mental fact-sheet on biotics surfaced.

_High caloric use equals high caloric intake. _

He was also wearing sunglasses. Indoors. He was the only one in the mess, and it _was_ a little dark in here…

"You okay, Alenko?" The stupid question seemed to jump out of her mouth.

Alenko's lips twitched, his fork prodding his food. "Photophobia." Shepard recognized the word, and several contexts for its occurrence. The knowledge must not have showed on her face, because Alenko added, "Last vestiges of a migraine. It's okay—it wears off."

"Okay." She could not think of anything better to say. She got her supper and sat down, poking at the spaghetti speculatively. "Do you have a moment?"

Alenko mentally shook his head. Firstly, he usually preferred to eat by himself, especially when his migraines started acting up. Secondly, _she_ was the higher-ranked officer. If she wanted to talk, even small talk, it was her prerogative. "Why not?"

Shepard twirled herself a forkful of pasta. "Um…this is awkward, so I'll be blunt. I've never worked with a biotic before."

"Not surprising." The statement, wholly untroubling, reminded him of someone propping a door open.

Shepard continued twirling pasta around her fork. "I don't know what questions to ask…so I'm going to ask you to tell me what it is you can do…so I don't have to keep shouting '_do that thing_!' at you every time things heat up."

Alenko could not repress a chuckle.

"Definitely not one of my most articulate moments?" She made it a question, but smiled as well. It sounded so funny in retrospect.

"What do you know already…?" Alenko eyed her closely, unsure where he should start. She was intelligent, technologically savvy, and very articulate, but that did not mean she wanted to start with a line before moving on to a square.

"Pretend I don't know _anything, _past how you get to be one."

It was like starting in the middle. He cast about for the most immediately useful piece of information. "I can't read minds."

"Failed that in basic too, did you?" Shepard knew this was a popular superstition, and so showed that she thought it ridiculous.

"Yeah…" Alenko poked his spaghetti. How many times had he heard that joke? Biotics had to be careful with it, though. "You want combat application, right?"

Shepard caught the discomfort deftly. "That's an awfully tiny box, Lieutenant." She was pushing the right buttons, and she knew it. One did not have to be a genius to guess this would be an awkward topic, and she suspected there were underlying issues she was neither aware of, nor authorized to look for. "You break this stuff down into categories and skill sets, right?" Alenko nodded. Of course, even _clothes_ got broken down into categories. "Start there."

The conversation lasted well over an hour—though Shepard paused often enough to give Alenko a chance to eat between questions. The whole range of topics was utterly fascinating, in the same vein as the fascination she might feel hearing a dancer's or ice skater's explanation of their chosen art.

This impression was not lost on Alenko. Admittedly, he still felt a seed of suspicion about anyone with so many questions, an old habit acquired over the years. This suspicion eased when twice she came very close to uncomfortable topics, recognized it, apologized for being nosy, before falling back to a more general topic.

Shepard did not know it, but all the effort she put into keeping this conversation light, casual, and friendly did not show in the slightest. She would have been pleased to know, but she did not. All she did know was more than she did at the outset, and that her list of questions about biotics was drastically shorter.

In her memory, sun bouncing off a shiny metal surface glittered in memory-jogging clarity. "So…let me ask you this…" Shepard launched into the narrative, sparing him superfluous details like 'where' and 'when'.

While Shepard related the attack of the training weight, Alenko's smile became fixed, as he realized she was extremely earnest, despite the casual phraseology she used in during the narration.

With the training of Alliance biotics on Alliance-controlled installations (instructors being 'guests'), it made sense she would have run into something like that. But someone would either have to be rookie-green or showing off to lose a weight like that….it was unbelievable. Someone was showing off, irresponsibly at that. Biotics _never_ started with a weight that heavy, much less with the ability to throw it around indiscriminately.

"So that training weight…?" Shepard prompted, noticing Alenko's expression change from bemusement to absolute disgust for someone who ought to know better.

"It would have killed you," he answered matter-of-factly. Shepard made a face, but did not seem too shocked, leaving Alenko to suppose she anticipated the answer. He looked down at his plate as silence descended. "So, uh, you always ask this many questions?" Alenko asked. Not that he minded. Shepard made the conversation about the intricacies and uses of biotics sound like…like discussing some shared recreation, or an item of note in the _Navy Times_.

It was probably one of the most comfortable conversations on the topic he could recall having. One of the very few that did not leave him feeling—though he never showed it—like a circus freak. There were still days.

Shepard's eyes glittered. Getting so many answers to so many questions in such a short time, (time passed quite pleasantly) put her in as impish mood as Shepard ever got. "I figured I'd better do a little research, rather than rely on _it works by magic_ when referencing biotics."

Alenko did not know it was possible to spray food though this nose, but he nearly proved the feasibility of it.

-J-

For the event Shepard brought up, see "Cause and Effect 48: Magic"


	22. Mod

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The Emporium on the Presidium Ring hosted enough tech and gadgets to keep even Shepard from wandering around too fast. Of course, she was technically looking for an omnitool, to replace the one blown out by the Prothean beacon (her skin prickled at the memory), but there were quite a few mods she would love to have. The blowback dampener for her shotgun, for instance. She could not use a scope for it, but there was always her rifle, her fallback.

In her line of work, she had not yet found a reason to invest in a silencer, but she had to admit, it would be a fun thing to have. Shepard picked up a block of specialized ammunition. Tungsten, good for synthetics. Not something the Alliance issued standard.

When was the last time anyone saw a geth outside the Perseus Veil? _Before _now, she amended. She held onto the block. She had a feeling she would need it, sooner or later. If she did not…well, there were always shooting ranges on groundside Alliance stations. Or off the premises, if you wanted a nice shooting range, the kind with overhead lights and snack machines in the lobby.

The hanar proprietor drifted past her, glowing softly as it—he, she thought it was a he—inquired resonantly if another customer was finding everything they wanted.

She slipped away from the hanar, back to omnitools and omnitool upgrades. It was one of the good things about being active duty: the Alliance covered almost everything but groceries and such personal items. If you did not mind standard-issue, and Shepard did not, it was easy to put money aside.

And when one had geekish tendencies, and a love of tech, it came in handy. She picked up a mod for an omnitool, hastily putting it back down. She did _not_ want a pink omnitool. Some people still wondered if she was marine material, what with geekish tendencies and a diplomatic streak. A pink omnitool would not help her cause…but a blue one would be nice…

She turned abruptly, meaning to inquire an opinion from a teammate, only to find them both conspicuously absent. She kicked herself before eyeing the blue filter again, before putting it down. Blue would destroy nightvision. Now, a red one might be all right…

But it was strange how used she had become in so short a time to having Alenko and Williams at least in the same room. Williams might not have anything to say on the subject, but Alenko _certainly_ did not carry a standard issue Bluewire.

Strange, and here she thought she liked being alone when not on duty. It had been that way for years. No vacation, very few friends outside her crewmates on the _El Alamein_. She could not call it an isolationist existence, but Robbins certainly would, seconded by Maguire.

It was an unfair assessment. People had a habit of getting hurt around her. Things blew up. Or collapsed. Or went wrong six ways to Sunday. Line of duty was one thing, soldiers knew the risks, and knew they could depend on her as a leader. Off duty was something else.

She was warned of the hanar proprietor's approach by the hum of the field that let him hover the way he did.

She needed an omnitool before she could think about nifty mods and fixtures. She mumbled something polite before putting the mod back and heading over to the counter of omnitools. She could do this herself. They did not have her former model—she could not call it 'old' since it was still under warranty.

But she had discovered warranty did _not_ cover explosion's due to recklessness or 'inventive uses' in the field. She did not think warranty would cover explosion due to alien tech, either. Who would believe her? She might complain about having to shell out to buy a new omnitool, but at the same time, she could not entirely suppress glee at upgrading so soon. She did not _need_ the upgrade, but she justified that she could not wait for them to special order something.

The NEX, while obliging, would take longer than a civilian sector establishment. The NEX was overworked and underpaid, but they always had Astro-Fizz.

Speaking of which, she could go for a cold one just about now.

Shepard peered at the omnitools again, before selecting one, same brand, better model. Here was to needing a week to figure out all the bells and whistles. Checking the back of the box for specs, she wandered back over to the array of mods, feeling like a child in a candy store. She found a red display mod, checked the requirements and restrictions, before making a few faces at herself.

The yellow-range of the default color did burn the eyes in the dark.

She skipped customization of the wrist unit. She was a soldier, the brass complained if it glittered or had stickers or other 'junk' on it. Shepard headed over to the register, placing her purchases carefully on the counter, ready to make the funds transfer for them.

She was not really listening until she heard the word 'sale' and 'arms mods'. "I'll be right back." She knew they were suckering her into spending more money, but she meant to get the shotgun mod anyway…well, she would have to check and make sure it was on the sale list, first. In the long run, she was saving money. She considered herself a fiscally responsible person as she carried the shotgun mod over to the counter. This was just being fiscally responsible.

The fact remained, as she paid for her purchases, one could _never_ have enough mods, especially if one was a soldier. A soldier always ended up somewhere they did not really want to be; it was practically in the job description—or rather, it should be.

And after all, Shepard concluded with unimpeachable logic, everyone needed to collect something whether it be tech or playing cards.


	23. All Dolled Up

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Ashley Williams' nerves jangled as she smoothed her dark hair once again, before putting it up neatly, but low enough on her head so the bun would not make her hat tilt strangely. Doing her hair, she thought with grim amusement, took more time than almost any other task she did on any given day. Too dry, and it frizzed. Too wet and it looked plastered to her scalp with a brittle quality difficult to look at.

Most days, especially days when she needed to look more than 'presentable' (which, being relative, was as picture-perfect as she could get), it took three or four tries. Today it took one; she was not sure whether it was a good sign or not.

The high collar of her dress jacket seemed to choke her, though she could not deny she looked _good _in this getup. She adjusted a medal on her jacket as though it hung crooked. No Williams would ever permit a crooked medal. If such a thing would bring a scolding for any other troop, it would bring about a court-martial for a Williams.

The grim smile forced her to divert extra mental power not to get mired in a funk. She did not, usually, _obsess_ over her family's history with the Alliance…but sometimes being all dressed up and feeling paraded brought it to the surface.

Well, live up to the uniform. It surprised her, a little, for Shepard to put her under orders to come along. Part of Williams could see the logic—take the ground crew—but part of her wondered if Shepard simply did not want to be political fodder all by herself.

It was almost amusing, to think of Shepard as afraid of the politicos. Williams wasn't. She merely held them in mild contempt. She hated politics, and for good reason. She tucked her hat underneath her arm, since she was still on the _Normandy_, and checked herself over once. With a deep breath, she made her way to the bridge to wait.

-J-

Alenko had never particularly minded the dress blues—except that the saber always seemed in his way. It had to be psychological, the fear of somehow getting tangled up with it and face-planting on the deck. He was not, and knew he was not, a clumsy person…but everyone had that one article of uniform, or daily wear, that left them feeling self-conscious or at a disadvantage.

Still, for all the trouble it caused him, it did not look out of place with the blues, and he _would_ have felt naked without it. Before slipping the jacket on, however, he followed Shepard's quiet order that he and Williams both should go under arms, and checked that his pistol was charged and ready for use. What sort of trouble she expected on the Citadel, of all places, he did not know; it was this inclination to write going armed off as a needless precaution, which answered his question.

She expected trouble because _no one_ expected trouble on the Citadel.

The humor of being a first-timer on the Citadel—and dressing in a fashion guaranteed to draw a great deal of attention—was not lost on him. Forget looking like tourists.

Smiling at his reflection he shrugged his jacket on, buttoning it up. Better get the grins over with in private, and put on his duty-oriented marine game face on. He had never met Ambassador Udina, but the man's reputation preceded him.

It sounded as though Shepard was about to be fed to the sharks, and he was glad she had opted to take backup. No one, officer or the very greenest private, should have to endure something like that without some kind of support.

Not that she could not handle it, but who wanted to deal with the sort of crap Udina was famous for? Alenko had a nasty suspicion the Ambassador was even less pleasant in person than rumor made him out to be.

Alenko gave himself another once-over before pulling on his gloves.

-J-

Shepard took one final glance at herself in the small mirror. It took effort not to purse her lips and smudge her lipstick further, as she would lip balm, lest she smudge it into clown-like proportions. She did not like what she saw, but neither did she allow herself to think it over much.

Below her collar rested the Star of Terra, glittering gold, suspended from its crimson ribbon. Shepard had never truly decided how to feel about that Star—though, while the design was loosely based on a star, the reality was not star-like, and was the size of a large coin.

She remembered Elysium in fits and starts. She remembered the smoke. She remembered the screams. The radio tower. Using her omni-tool. Too many aliens. Everything else was hazy, permeated by concrete dust and adrenaline.

Everything except the fact that there were too many dead bodies, humans, even if the colony had remained standing, however battered. People seemed to forget there were other marines, other servicemen, on the planet at the time—just not all where she had ended up.

_She_ had the misfortune to wander away from the others while obeying orders: '_get off my boat and take leave_'. That was Robbins for you.

Shepard cleared her throat, turning her face this way and that. She did not look like a raccoon. Shepard jammed her pistol into the shoulder rig she was wearing, knowing it would distort the silhouette of the jacket. To say she did not care would be untrue—she _did_.

But she did not want to traipse around with just a sword—however adept a biotic Alenko might be. _If_ something happened, she wanted to be able to shoot back.

Shepard made her way to the bridge, uncomfortably aware that everyone she walked past snapped to as if they'd just received an electrical shock. Her discomfort eased as she joined her ground team.

Snappy, very snappy—too bad the Alliance recruiters weren't hanging around.


	24. Illusion

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The immaculate cleanliness of the Presidium Ring got under Williams' skin. Fake blue sky with clouds hung overhead, trees that did not rustle raised leafy arms upwards, as the lake lapped against its boundaries. None of the apparent perfection relieved her of a sense that something was lurking out of sight. She was glad to see tourist-thrown junk in the water; at least the place did not look like it was steam cleaned every couple hours.

The environment's attempts to mimic a genuine, natural environment only made it seem that much more artificial. People dressed in fashionable or expensive clothes (sometimes both) strolled this way and that, among them turians in high collars and lurid colors, asari in dresses that looked like plastic or rubber, C-Sec officers in full armor, hanar glowing softly, a couple of elcor strolling almost majestically along, and some humans.

But no humans stood out like three marines in their dress blues. There was never _anything_ like a marine in dress blues, Williams thought complacently. Who else carried a sword these days? Ah, it was great when the old traditions lasted. She could see in her mind's eye the two inscriptions on the blade, a change that had occurred in the past hundred or so years. On one side, _A. Williams_, on the other…._Invictus. _

It may not be the branch line—_adapt, improvise, overcome—_but it worked.

Click-click, click-click. She could hear the tapping of her shoes, mingling with those of Shepard and Alenko up front. What would the Citadel custodial staff _do_ if three marines left black marks all over their white floors?

She was half-tempted to find out, but resisted the urge. They were here on serious business, and now was no time for juvenile acts, or antagonizing others.

Still…there were no black marks from people's shoes on these white floors…

…was it just her, or did everything around here seem luminous? No, it was not just her. Why did the whole place seem to _glow_? Every white panel she could see seemed to be a plastic shield over a bright light. What was with that? Ugh, these aliens and their weirdness.

The trees were not the only towering landmarks, though only two stood out in her mind. The first was a massive statue of a very ugly krogan trying to look noble. The other was quite a distance further away, almost invisible, a miniature replica of a mass relay. She was not much of an artist, but compared with the krogan statue, anything was good. As for the relay, the artist seemed to have taken time to make it look almost functional, instead of just another piece of over-polished grandeur.

With all the dazzling light and whiteness, the sense that all this so-called beauty (she hated these artificial environments) and undeniable serenity was an illusion grew. This was about where zombies or something came crawling out of the woodwork, she thought with grim humor.

Still, the Protheans built their stuff to last. Fifty thousand years, and the place looked new, though it conspicuously lacked the smell of fresh plastic. She hoped it was not all like this.

Suddenly they were in the embassy, if you could call it 'in'. It was like walking under a ledge to find oneself in someone's living room. The geek-nerd officers (and the thought was so benign it was genuinely friendly) looked as though they wanted to consult the VI flickering near the embassy's 'entrance', but did not.

"It's too perfect," Williams grunted aloud to Alenko as Shepard spoke to the receptionist—an asari who did not seem pleased by Shepard's interruption. She wished she had her hardsuit instead of her dress blues. The sense of everything here being a blind, an illusion, made her skin crawl. She wished she had her assault rifle, too. Overkill? Maybe. But better overkill than…

…than what? What was she expecting? And since when did she get paranoid?

"What is?" Alenko asked, catching Williams off guard.

She had not thought he was paying attention to anything but his own thoughts. "It's like they're hiding something." She shifted her footing before starting off after Shepard, who led the way towards, presumably, the human embassy.

"Of course they are," Alenko agreed, glancing around at the art behind the receptionist. He wondered if it would look any better upside down (maybe someone hung it wrong?), or if it was ugly on purpose. Something like that either had to be a gross mistake, or something absolutely intentional. "If it looks too good to be true…"

"…it probably is," Shepard finished, having caught the gist of the conversation. Shoes clicked as they trotted up the flight of stairs leading towards Udina's office. She was not looking forward to seeing him. She had never met the man, but his reputation preceded him.

Case and point of Williams' assessment that things were being hidden. Udina was not known for his social skills, social graces, or any graces at all. The man was a political animal. When he was not schmoozing his constituents (to use the old metaphors, however inaccurate), he was taxing them to death. She shook her head. Now was not the time for that. It was a briefing, show up, say her piece, answer questions, and get out of Udina's office.

"Wonder if they use their community service programs to keep this place looking nice." She doubted it. Places like the Presidium tended to be elitists, whether or not they wanted to admit it.

"Nice thought," Williams noted as they stopped. A few minor adjustments to uniforms, the smoothing of nonexistent wrinkles, tugs at the hems of their jackets, quick checks to make sure nothing was out of place.

Shepard reached up to touch the admit panel.

Williams smirked: here was another illusion. Marines were tough, competent people who got a job done. But if they had to dress up, they preened like anyone else, making sure no one saw them at anything but their very best.


	25. Decadent

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard was lost. It was not even her first time on the Citadel's Presidium Ring, and she had gotten not only herself, but Williams and Alenko lost.

"Commander?" Williams asked hesitantly.

"Huh?"

Alenko stifled a chuckle. 'Huh?' was the response of a high schooler presented with the question 'where's your homework?'.

"Are we lost?" The question came out bravely.

"To put it in layman's terms…yes, Williams, I'm lost." It cost her something to admit it. "Which means I'm going to do the layman's thing."

"What's that?" Alenko asked, as Shepard turned to face them, putting the trio in a huddle.

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm going to ask for directions." Being a marine, asking for directions was not usually necessary. Usually there was a mission coordinator, or, as on Arcturus, directions painted on the walls with arrows. But disorientation made even the signs here almost meaningless.

Particularly as she was not sure which elevator they used to get _out _of the docking bay in the first place. She had made too many intermediate stops. "So, let me go ask." Her tone said 'pick a bench'.

Alenko did not even consider picking a bench.

Nor did Williams. Marines in a strange place should stay in a pack, _especially _with all the aliens walking around.

Shepard turned into the nearest venue, and stopped dead in her tracks.

Williams, scanning their surroundings for any sign of aggression aimed their way, did not see Shepard stop, and bumped into her. "Whoa, sorry…" she trailed off, taking in the business before which they stood.

"Hello there," an asari, in a flimsy gown smiled. As she moved, the dress fluttered and moved as though alive.

Shepard found herself looking around, brows furrowed in confusion. Exotic, heavy perfume assailed her nose, pulled to the entryway by the open door. The room was warm—it probably had to be, given the revealing nature of the asari's dress.

Directly behind the asari, apparently unhurried as the humans gawked, a waterfall dominating the back wall bubbled softly. It even had mossy ferns and a few water plants sprouting from the pool at its base. Shepard caught glimpses of the rooms away to the left, protected by gauzy veils of some light magenta material which puffed and billowed with the slightest movement of air. Low voices issued from beyond it.

The door behind Alenko slid shut, cutting off the light from the Presidium, revealing a business lit softly, too dimly in Shepard's opinion. She fumbled for the right word to describe her surroundings. They were so unlike the sparse, uniform, standard issue, regulation governed Alliance surroundings which filled her life.

Williams made a sucking sound with tongue and teeth, unimpressed. She could make several guesses about what this bordello-looking place was, and could not believe Shepard was really going to ask for directions, instead of herding them all out to try again somewhere else. The sweet perfume made her nose twitch.

Alenko did not find the atmosphere as disturbing as the women did, but he was sure he could, within three guesses, identify the proprietress. There was only one name bandied about the Citadel which matched such…opulent…surroundings. Yet opulent did not seem the right word.

"I assume you're here to see the Asari Consort," the asari announced, once it became apparent the humans were not sure whether to speak, or walk away.

Alenko nodded mentally. First guess.

Williams glanced around, then rolled her eyes.

Shepard did not choke, but she groaned inwardly. Hadn't she heard scuttlebutt about this place earlier? She _would_ end up here—and 'here' was not even groundside! She should _not_ find herself in these weird predicaments! It was as though someone was playing a game with her life.

"You'll have to wait, I'm afraid…unless you'd like to speak to one of the other attendants…?"

"No, thank you." Shepard sounded not unlike a robot as she answered the question. Her usual discomfort around asari notwithstanding, the ambiance here made her feel out of place—like a goose among peacocks. "I just stepped in for directions—Presidium docking bay?" It was the best point of reference she had.

"Ah, well, I'm sorry you won't stay," the asari smiled charmingly. "It's on the other side of the bridge—just find the C-Sec Academy."

"Thank you," Shepard turned to go, embarrassed at being so close to their destination. C-Sec Academy was, relatively speaking, right across the street. It stung that she had been in this area before now, and had not gotten lost _then_.

Or maybe it was the kicking of heels while waiting for the appointed time for the Council hearing. Her stomach shuddered with apprehension, the same contained apprehension detectable in her comrades.

"Yes, Shai'ira?" The asari touched a communication unit Shepard could not see. "Just a moment, Commander," the asari called softly before Shepard could usher the others out ahead of her.

How the asari know her? It was this strange perceptiveness asari all seemed to have which had always unnerved Shepard. As if they could _read her mind_—which was crazy. "Of course. I will. Shai'ira would like to see you, Commander. Through here, and straight back. Stairs are on the right."

Shepard teetered on saying she could not, so sorry but she had things to do…

"It won't take but a moment of your time," the asari pressed gently.

Shepard glanced back at Alenko and Williams. Williams made a face, as though refusing something distasteful. Alenko shrugged.

Shepard nodded, acquiescing. There was time.

"Excellent, your associates can either wait down here, or follow you up. I must ask you to keep your weapons out of your hands, for the comfort of our other customers." With that, the asari left her podium to pull back the gauzy drape.

Decadent, Shepard decided as she stepped down the short flight of stairs, noting the plush decoration of an otherwise drab room. That was the word for this place. Decadent.

Her military sensibilities did _not _like it.


	26. Uncomfortable

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams staunchly refused to go up with Shepard and Alenko—the latter of whom seemed to teeter between whether to let the Commander take care of herself…or just stay put. Shepard _was_ a big girl, after all...and this wasn't such a horrible place to kill time.

Williams noticed the attention Alenko drew as he stood there, picture perfect. Not all the attention was positive: that volus seemed to be feeling threatened by the strapping marine. She would bet that, the next opportunity that arose, he'd get himself a new environmental suit.

A flashy one.

_That,_ Williams settled comfortably (but radiating a vibe designed to keep anyone and everyone at a distance), was the price guys paid for walking around in dress uniforms. She could admit that there really was something about a man in uniform.

Not that she would ever want Alenko herself…the idea made her shiver. He was nice, but somehow…he was just way _too_ nice. And a geek-nerd. The kind of guy, in high school, whom she tolerated the same way she might feel towards a ragamuffin cocker spaniel: something too cute to ignore, but not something that belonged in her life.

Still…she watched him finally vanish behind Shepard, trotting a few paces to catch up. The view from back here wasn't something she would complain about either…

The couch was soft. Way, _way_ too soft, and making her back hurt.

-J-

Alenko was not complaining about the view here, either. Though he did have to be careful not to take Shepard's saber to the face. She held it carefully so as not to trip, but she did not seem to have a good idea of _where, _exactly, the end of that thing was.

"That's close enough, Commander." The asari addressed Shepard—who obediently stopped—before he had a clear line of view. Moving to stand at Shepard's shoulder he beheld an asari, tiny by comparison to most he had ever seen, regarding Shepard thoughtfully, before casting him an appraising look.

It perplexed him: what could an asari…courtesan was a good word, he supposed, want with geth-fragging, boot-stomping, gung-ho Commander Shepard? Shepard drew attention, but how eyes here ended up turned her way was disturbing.

And it made him uneasy, the way the asari swayed over, looking up at Shepard but in such a way as to make Shepard seem the short one.

It was a neat trick, but one that left him feeling insanely over-large and clumsy—like a dancing bear.

-J-

Shepard shared the sentiment, as the asari encroached on her personal space. She could not back up without backing into Alenko, and _would not_ retreat like a nervous private with Mike Yamada bearing down on her. Asari made Shepard distinctly uncomfortable. It was nothing more than the attitude so many of them projected, that so-superior (or conniving) attitude, as though they knew more about a person than that person did him- or her-self.

It was the same now. She met the asari's deep blue eyes, then wanted to snarl, recoil, and walk away. She was not the most poker-faced person in the world, hers had plenty of chinks, but she did not like feeling as though someone could see right through her. She kept walls between herself and others for a reason.

-J-

Alenko's dark eyes narrowed as Shepard radiated the same solidity as a mountain might: she was rooted to the spot, not going anywhere until she decided to move. He did notice—and he did not think the Consort did—that Shepard's grip on her saber tightened.

His own grip tightened as Shepard began fending off the Consort. He knew his place—both professionally and off-duty—and he had no right to intercede to get those wandering blue mitts away from Shepard's person. She had that under control, but the asari, although demure, sweetly making her request like a damsel to a knight in the old Saturday morning cartoons, was not taking the hint.

He squashed the notion: he knew 'twinge of jealousy' when he felt it, and it was not something he had any business feeling.

-J-

Shepard finally took her hand off her saber and held it up warningly, taking a step to the side and one back so as not to walk into Alenko—why was he so infernally clingy? The steps put her out of arms' reach, though she did not lower her warning hand. Enough was enough.

It was offensive; especially since she hated scuttling like a spider suddenly deprived of the darkness in which it was hiding. "You need to back off. Now."

-J-

Shepard's bristling-but-calm declaration came as he finally intervened. As soon as she gave ground, things had proceeded far enough. Unable to abort the words, he let them go, declaring to himself he would find a stapler soon and just permanently fasten his mouth closed. "Commander, the Council's going to wonder where you are." He said it very quietly, so as to keep the irritation out of his tone.

"Thank you, Lieutenant. You'll forgive me," her tone was grim as she returned her attention to the Consort, "if I ask you to come quickly to the point. What do you want?"

-J-

By the time Shepard reached the bottom of the stairs, leaving the Consort's chamber, her expression as almost murderous. Alenko caught a glimpse of her face before she strode out, her skin tinged pink with irritation and indignation.

He didn't blame her: mending spats between lovers (and complete strangers) was _not_ in the line of duty.

The woman was, Shepard snarled, no fool. No, let the asari fix her own problem.

Shepard did not believe the Consort was so low on contacts that she needed to scoop up the nearest available soldier to get involved with diplomatic proceedings. There was something else, something she could not see and it worried her.

Williams caught Alenko's eye long enough for him to glance back at the stairs and make a face.

She knew she was right to have waited patiently.


	27. Sharks

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard's blood boiled in her veins, manifesting only as a fire in her eyes, a mouth that was a little too thin, and a stance resembling a coiled spring. So this was Saren. He _was_ shorter than Nihlus, and looked as though he'd had his plates refinished with aluminum—if turians would ever do such a thing. Regardless, for a moment she thought he was more than half synthetic.

Everything Capt. Anderson told her during the trip to the Citadel about Saren, his politics, anything potentially useful, ran through her mind like emergency bulletins on a security strip. So he hated humans—well, he was entitled to an opinion, but this was obviously taking things _way_ too far.

She would know.

Was this the face of a Council bagman? Again the squirming dislike of being offered up for 'evaluation' demanded she put her foot down and point out that her Oath of Service would be in direct conflict with anything the Council wanted her to swear to, and she swore to the Alliance _first. _

…after a moment's consideration, it sounded plausible that this might be _why_ they chose _her_ and not, say, some scruple-less sociopathic biotic, who gave biotics everywhere a bad reputation.

Williams kept glancing from the mangled turian to the back of Shepard's head. The impression she had was that if Shepard was one iota less well-practiced a soldier, she would come across the room and strangle Saren with her bare hands holo-projection or not.

…and with Shepard's current mood, she could probably make that work.

Alenko's attention to his superior was scant compared to normal circumstances. His attention flickered from Saren to focus mostly on the Council. This was a hung jury: there was nothing anyone could say to get Saren nailed. All this was just posturing…and how many of the humans realized it? Surely he wasn't the only one.

There were sharks in the water, and anyone with a grain of sense would get _out _of that water and let them do their thing.

Shepard was angry, truth be told, but only at the very bottom of her well of emotions. She carefully packed and buffered the irritation by the cold logic she used to freeze such counterproductive emotions in place, under a layer of 'get it done' determination and a sheen of irritation that people—regardless of species—could be so stupid and so irritatingly similar.

Human politicians did the same thing: stuck their heads in the ground, or stopped up their ears going 'la la la' like schoolchildren. It was disgusting to watch, especially in a who-knew-how-old asari. One would think that lifespan would be good for something. None of these people were children by any standards: Saren wasn't, she wasn't, the Council weren't, Anderson, Udina…

They should not have this problem.

"Ah, and this must be your new protégé: the one who let the beacon get destroyed."

"You know a lot, considering Nihlus isn't even cold yet." Despite the popular opinion about Shepard's state of mind, the words came out calm, almost dismissive of someone she chose not to recognize as an equal…much like what Saren was doing. She could not tell what the turian thought, but marked him down as a shrewd individual: shrewd enough to do as she had done and learn as much about the enemy as possible….

…so he would know how to kill them.

She had brushed up on her understanding of turians in general, but knew that, comparatively speaking, her knowledge of her enemy was somewhat less than that enemy's knowledge of her.

Alenko, grimly amused, decided that if those two ever met in person, one of them would not walk away. Either that or the planet they were on would blow up, as though someone had divided by zero.

"All Nihlus' files passed to me upon his death; I read them. I am…unimpressed. Your species isn't ready Shepard." Saren almost purred it, crossing his arms as though regarding a petulant child. "Not ready to join the Council, not ready to join the Spectres…not even ready to join C-Sec."

"He can't say that!" Udina barked, to the disgust of the humans standing nearby. "That's not his decision!"

"The admission of Commander Shepard into the Spectres is _not_ the purpose of this meeting," the asari inserted coolly.

"This meeting has no purpose, Councilor," Saren's eyes fixed again on Shepard, "Other than to waste your precious time…and mine."

"You're barefaced," Shepard spoke up quietly, but in a tone that carried. "And it's going to catch up with you." The silence that fell, apart from a knowing chuckle resonating in Saren's chest was absolute.

"Coming from a _human_?" Saren asked, almost sweetly, flaunting his perceived superiority over this little squishy morsel the humans had the nerve to call a soldier.

"You've already made it clear that humans aren't to be accorded the same position in the galaxy as turians; why on Earth or Palaven would you want to honor me by judging me according to your people's standards?"

Saren and Shepard exchanged a look which clearly denoted that—by the same token—her insult should be nothing more than the crying from some rabble…yet in a proud turian it also struck a nerve, even if it was literally true.

"Commander Shepard, unless you have anything _pertinent _to add?" The turian councilor would have loved to call her down, except that her statements were both collected, accurate (Saren bore no colony markings), and were diplomatic enough to be left open to interpretation.

Shepard was not, and those who needed to know knew, a species-centric individual. Her record proved it. They had assurances.

"Nothing at this time, Councilor; I won't waste my breath."

She never had much hope for this mission, nor did she have much hope when her 'dream' was called into play. She let Udina and Anderson hash it out—and let Anderson take his lumps. He could handle it, and would not appreciate her inserting her two credits worth.


	28. Punch

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The Citadel was a big place, but not so big that one could not find a local gym, or a hole-in-the-wall diner. Williams went in search of the former after Shepard declared the working day _over_, with such flat finality that no one could have argued with her.

Alenko and Williams certainly had not. They might not look it, but those highly polished shoes were uncomfortable, even with gel inserts.

The gym was brightly lit, full of humans and aliens both. Williams did not care one way or another, knowing full well if anyone so much as _looked_ at her cross-eyed she was going to lose her boiling, roiling temper. So far, she had succeeded in keeping it in check, but unless she could work it off she could not guarantee the restraint would hold.

An entire human unit massacred, a dead Spectre, geth crawling around like intergalactic cockroaches, a blown-up beacon, a dead rookie, a banged up dyed-in-the-wool _hero_, and _this_ was how thing splayed out?

She hated politics. _Wham. _And she hated that smug ambassador. 'Ass' was right. _Pow. _And all those smug alien politicians. She pounded the bag so unmercifully she had to stop so it could re-center itself, her onslaught too violent for the suspensors holding it square. If she really wanted to wail on it, she needed someone hold it still.

Irritation continued to pour off her, until her skin prickled as sweat began trickling from it.

"Hey."

The single word was not a challenge, but Williams turned around sharply, not bothering to identify the speaker before snarling, "Back off, unless you want to hold the training bag…" Or take its _place_…

Williams' jaw dropped as her mouth stopped running. This was a real change of pace, usually it was Alenko's mouth's emergency brake that was broken.

"I was going to ask if you wanted to take turns doing just that." Shepard, dressed for PT, remarked blandly, but her expression, while not directed at Williams, was anything but bland. Her body language spoke of tightly constrained irritation and a need to get it vented any way possible.

As with Williams, pummeling something inanimate was a better alternative than heading down into the Wards looking for a fight.

And taking out her temper on the gym equipment was far more befitting for an officer, who had to remember that the Alliance was judged by her actions.

Such was the responsibility of _any_ officer.

"I…" Williams' brain locked up, leaving her to gape stupidly.

Shepard dismissed both the look, and the snarled retort. Honestly, it was refreshing not to get a snap-to and salute when she was in this sort of mood. The fact they were both angry meant they would communicate on the same lines. "Can it, Chief, do you want to team up or not?" She gestured to the bag.

Williams nodded curtly. Shepard moved to stand on the other side of the full-size bag, providing extra stability. "Those squid-headed, beaky-nosed little eels…" Williams slammed an open-palm strike in the bag. Shepard grunted at the impact, but the bag remained fairly still. "What're they playing at…?" The colorful slurs and curses would have amused Shepard on any other day (and brought mild censure after the amusement passed).

Today however, she nodded in agreement, wholly irritated by all the idiots in this galaxy, whether she knew their names or not.

Williams stopped, her hands stinging. "Take a go." She and Shepard switched positions.

Shepard bobbed lightly on the balls of her feet, jabbing out at the bag with the air of one going for vital organs with swift but punishing blows.

Williams watched speculatively. "You box?" she asked, after Shepard finished a flurry that would have pummeled someone's face in.

"My last CO…" she hit the bag so hard Williams rocked onto the balls of her feet to keep the article steady, "was a bare knuckle boxer. She was teaching me." Shepard let loose another flurry, rejoicing in the sound of her firsts hitting the synthetic (blast those geth), leathery covering. Whatever was in it shifted, and she had to change places with Williams, as her knuckles protested.

The shifts of abusing the bag while hissing and spitting irritation lasted for the better part of an hour, until finally both women could not remain irritated and focus on breathing.

"Bad day at the office?" Someone called cheekily.

Shepard looked as though she would have liked to give him the bird, but refrained from doing so. "Want to see how bad?" Williams snapped, tossing her head, before prying strands of hair away from her sweat-sticky face.

Shepard's look of dispassionate boredom was as effective as Williams 'go kill it' mood.

"Jerk," Williams grunted under her breath.

Shepard, her face flushed unattractively, nodded. "You've got good fists…"

"Well, I'm not the one who ought to be punching krogan…" Williams stopped when Shepard gave a low chuckle, evidencing Williams touching some inner joke. "What…you don't wrestle krogan in your spare time, do you Commander?"

Shepard's grin widened. "My CO got into a bar fight with one. And won." That was a memory, and one she still had to chuckle over. So did Robbins, as far as Shepard knew.

"The bare knuckle…" Shepard nodded. Williams made a face. That was her kind of CO—take no crap from the aliens. "Wow…she must really pack a punch."

"She does," Shepard agreed, grabbing her small towel from the bench onto which she had tossed it. It felt good to get the sweat off her face, even if her cheeks had not yet started burning. Deep down, she envied the fact the Chief's darker olive complexion did not show the flush of exertion quite so much. "Let's get a juice or something…my treat."

"You're still pissed, aren't you?" Williams grabbed her own towel, her mouth curved into a lopsided grin.

"Knuckles give out before a grudge, Chief." Shepard wished it was not true, but since it was...

Williams nodded, rubbing her hands together.


	29. Diplomacy

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Of all the people and places in the world, Shepard knew it was possible to run into people she would rather avoid: Eva Rogers being one such individual. The brush with the krogan had her unnerved, though she did not show it. The distinct possibility remained that it was _not_ the same one Robbins—against all expectations, even her own, though she voiced support of her CO—pummeled at that backwater world bar.

Later. Deal with it later: the likelihood was it was _just_ a brush with someone who looked _like_ someone else. It had to be.

Shepard took a deep breath, regarding the grizzled, sleazy C-Sec officer—_former_ C-Sec officer, and good riddance. People like him inevitably joined the seedy underbelly of inhabited places.

Her mood, far from angelic, _must not_ be allowed to interfere with her mission; it was the philosophy she learned and lived and would continue to live. Still, Harkin was rasping on a raw nerve before he even completed his first two words…though the imposing bulk of Alenko and the slight but much fiercer presence of Williams both threatened bodily pain: Alenko would hold him and the women could have free reign.

The idea of Harkin biotically trussed up like a piñata was enough to break up her funk. It took a sense of humor to deal with people like this.

Still, being addressed like a stripper while wearing her BDUs…

She gave a grim laugh, still imagining Harkin being knocked about by a blindfolded, stick-wielding marine. "I'd rather suck on a liter of acid after chewing on a couple of razorblades."

There were, after all, many kinds of diplomacy. The diplomacy she used with the Council, the Brass, or anyone else over her pay grade was completely different from turian diplomacy, krogan diplomacy (which, while sounding like a contradiction _did _exist) and Terminus Systems diplomacy…

…though the last usually involved hot slugs.

"You trying to hurt my feelings, sweetheart?" Harkin covertly assessed the threat Alenko posed, recognizing someone who would get riled over this sort of conversation and whose poker face was poor enough to let it show. "After twenty years with C-Sec, I've been called every name in the book. You've gotta do better than that, Princess."

Shepard gave Alenko and Williams a grin, an almost predatory grin. When she turned back to Harkin however, her expression melted like wax to the same cold professionalism she would show to any armed enemy. Leaning on the table, she brought herself to Harkin's eye level, grateful for the high neck of her shirt. "If you call me princess again, I'm going to kick your balls up into your eye sockets." She answered in a tone that bordered on sultry-sadistic. "So if you want to keep your reason for hanging around this dingy little dive, I _strongly suggest_ you tell me where I can find Garrus Vakarian. _Right now._"

Diplomacy in action. She would not resort to knuckles, but that was immaterial. Harkin didn't know that.

-J-

"He's lucky to still be breathing," Williams noted as the trio picked their way through the crowded bar.

"He's an asshole. They've got good luck." Alenko blinked when both women glanced back at him, as though having expected to see a fourth marine standing beside him.

It was simply surprising to hear him swear like that…Shepard and Williams exchanged guilty looks: perhaps they had let their idea of Alenko as a big boy scout run a little wild.

Alenko shook his head. Well, it was nice to know they could be surprised, but the sentiment about Harkin still stood.

"Ksst," Williams nodded at the bar, to a plate being carried over to a corner where a turian sat morose with a bottle of some spirit and a big glass for it. "Was that food…or a customer?"

Shepard gave a snort of amusement. "All the food looks like it's ready _crawl off_. Don't wor—" She stopped, frowning at the turian.

"Someone you know?" Williams cast a doubtful glance at the lizard-looking alien. She _knew_ 'lizardy' was not an apt description…but they _were_…well, scaly and plated…sort of.

"Is it the food or a customer?" Williams murmured.

"No…" But she had caught enough of what he said to the servitor to know that she was about to get involved with something she would rather leave well enough alone.

Frak the asari. "Hang on," she sighed resignedly, running a hand over her hair, "I've got some turian diplomacy here…"

"…that's that General, isn't it?" Alenko grimaced.

"Yeah. I can't believe I'm going to do this." And before anyone could tell her 'Then don't,' Shepard squared her shoulders and hiked over to the turian. Hopefully he was far enough along in his drinking that a squishy little human giving him a swift kick and double-time would work.

Turians reacted well to that tactic, so said everything she knew (as well as her limited experience).

-J-

Williams shook her head slowly, and not because the Commander was letting some asari twit foist dirty work onto her shoulders. Within a few moments Shepard and the turian broke into an apparently heated argument, with a lot of snide human facial expressions as Shepard seemed to goad him, soldier to soldier. However, within a few more moments the turian rose, then drew himself up as though having recovered his dignity, before he judiciously shook hands with Shepard, nodding as though what he said was a positive assessment.

"If I _ever_ get a speeding ticket," Alenko noted as Shepard followed the turian towards her teammates, "I want her to be my advocate."

"Did you _miss_ your real calling?" Williams asked, as the turian proceeded past without noticing the other humans. "Because you can out-talk a brick wall."

Shepard chuckled. "Diplomacy takes a lot of forms, Chief. I like turian diplomacy. It's like krogan diplomacy…" She knew what the reactions would be, and got them.

"How's that?" Alenko asked, willingly taking the bait.

"Negotiation is best when everyone has a gun."


	30. Vista

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard stalked forward, following the path she had determined would get them from the Wards to the clinic in short order. It was farther to walk, but there was only one elevator, not two or more.

Elevator music could drive even the most balanced person insane. There it was, the way to simulate krogan battle rage in a human: plug them into the elevator music until they cracked.

"Harkin's a real asshole." When Williams said she would do anything to stick with this posting, she did _not_ mean venturing down into a dingy little strip club to get next to nothing out of rats like Harkin. He even got to keep all his teeth!

Alenko did not point out it was what he had said not much earlier. The knot of tension preceding a migraine was beginning to form, right under his headjack…

The stairs into the Market District cut the chatter. It was the price paid for avoiding elevator rides: hoofing it up long staircases.

Even in the Markets, Williams noted, the image of perfect cleanliness remained unbroken. "Wow…" She stopped as the obstructions of the district's support structure abruptly vanished to showcase the nebula in all its glory.

Shepard followed Williams to the vista. She had stood on stationside observation decks before and looked out into space, but never saw anything quite like this.

"Can I thank you for bringing me along, again?" Williams asked, eyes glittering. _That_ was something to write home about…or capture a holo of it.

"Hey, you saw it first…" Shepard leaned on the barrier wall, knowing they needed to get moving, but unable to just walk away from the view.

Alenko joined Shepard and Williams. His first impression of Jump Zero was one of awe, but that paled in comparison to what he was seeing—not the nebula, but the Citadel itself, a marvel of architecture. It looked smaller from the helm of the Normandy, but from here it took on a more accurate scale. "Big place," he announced succinctly.

Williams made a face, peering past Shepard to frown at Alenko." Is that your _professional_ opinion, sir?" A gorgeous nebula and he was ogling the architecture? Must still have glare in his eyes from the lights on all that asari skin back in the club.

"He's right, though," Shepard did not look away from the nebula, framed as it was by the ward arms. It seemed as though the Citadel reached out to embrace the light, color, and stardust but remained unable to touch it, forever just out of reach…

"It makes Jump Zero look like a _port-a-john_!" Williams grinned as she said it.

"Apples and oranges, Chief." Alenko's tone bore all the hallmarks of personal experience.

Shepard, forced herself away from her musings. "No wonder they're so careful in accepting newcomers…monitoring and security's gotta be a logistics nightmare."

Williams snorted. "Or maybe they just don't like humans."

Shepard silently reaffirmed her plan to find out where Williams' anti-alien sentiments came from. Far be it from her to try forcing someone to think a certain way, but it sounded as though Williams needed some perspective. "Why not?" She chose to joke instead. "How does it go in the old vids? Blue oceans, beautiful women, and this little thing called love. It's everything they ever wanted."

Williams stifled a snicker; she'd heard that line before, too.

"Well, when you put it like that," Alenko glanced over at Shepard's profile, "there's no reason why they wouldn't like you."

Williams choked on her snicker, looking away from the nebula altogether.

Shepard felt a little warm around the collar, though not nearly so much so as Alenko, who realized his brain had slipped into neutral. "Us." He corrected himself, which made Williams' expression fall somewhere between hilarity and surprise. "Humans. Ma'am."

_Someone just shoot me_, Alenko winced mentally. He could remember making this sort of gaffe around girls...women...only once in his life, and that was a _very _long time ago. Why start the humiliation again now?

Shepard bit her lip. To laugh would be to throw stones at a plate glass window.

"You…don't take much shore leave, do you El-Tee?" Williams asked, her tone one of conscientious neutrality as Shepard struggled to find something to say to take the heat off Alenko and the embarrassment out of the air.

The sudden emergence of interest other than the professional sort left her feeling out of her depth. If he had made it sound like a joke, it would have been okay, jokes she could handle…but that sounded a little too unplanned and off the tip of his tongue...the top of his head...to be a joke.

Not that she was insulted, but she wasn't sure what to do, so she fell back on the only thing she did know.

The Big Book of Alliance Rules and Regs, and humorous sarcasm.

"Laugh it up, Chief," Shepard pushed herself off the wall, turning to Alenko, who was still trying not to wince. "I appreciate the thought, Lieutenant, but I don't have anything to do with the KP roster."

Not that they _had_ one, but it was the same thing she would say to anyone trying to butter her up for something.

Alenko dove at the out like he would dive for cover in a firefight. "Can't blame me for trying." To illustrate his point, he reached out to the metal bar across the top of the balustrade. He did not flinch as the charge sparked against the metal, but Shepard did. Williams, not having expected it, jumped. "Doesn't mix well with water."

Shepard meant to say 'too bad', but caught herself. Anything she said right now would reopen the rift Alenko had just omni-gelled shut.

"It _is _kind of funny though," Alenko ventured in a more serious vein.

"What is?" Williams asked.

"We're all experienced marines and we're standing around, bullshitting like we just got off the boat." He wouldn't let it happen again. His mouth ran away when he did.


	31. No Time

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus followed the three marines unobtrusively, surprised to find them so unobservant. Or maybe they were simply preoccupied. The woman with Shepard, Williams he thought her name was, stalked along as one ready to start ripping off heads. Bare-handed.

Garrus hurried behind them. Obviously they had no idea what they were about to walk into. He performed a flawless roll into the room, virtually on the Lieutenant's heels—he had the benefit of a few more seconds than the marines did to assess the situation.

Both sides reacted out of surprise which rapidly became tension. Garrus had not expected the marines' weapons to be hot, without a sign of toggling safety features.

"We don't get paid to miss," Shepard warned.

Garrus could not see, but he _could_ hear. Dr. Michel's breathing was fast and shallow, obviously she was being used to keep the marines at bay. The shuffling not coming from combat boots on grubby floors, meaning six, maybe five, hostiles.

But their attentions were focused on Shepard, and her team. And no one—except the Lieutenant—had noticed him…if Garrus had had lips, he would have smiled after the human fashion.

There was no time to think the situation through further. Garrus popped to his feet, sighting his target as he moved. His pistol fired, and the thug holding the doctor fell to the ground in an ungainly heap. Garrus dropped back behind cover even as the marines scattered, the thugs opening retaliatory fire.

Suddenly the half-wall partition did not seem like a great place behind which to take cover. He scuttled back as holes appeared in the flimsy material. Garrus peeked up above the partition, watching Dr. Michel, encased in a cocoon of dark energy vanish behind the nearest medical table.

Shepard and Williams continued firing, forcing the thugs back into the far end of the clinic.

The duet of small weapons' fire and inaccurate shooting put Garrus' scales on edge. There was no time for this nonsense. He dropped another thug, displaying the single-shot weapons' mastery he prided himself on. He _was_ top of his marksmanship class in boot camp.

As if by mutual agreement, all present (and able) took cover.

"We can still talk about this!" Shepard called.

It looked like a red tape-appeasing gesture to Garrus. Evidently the thugs thought so too, for her only answer was random gunfire.

"Idiots." Williams grunted, before throwing herself from behind her crate, to behind the bullet-ridden partition.

"Not great cover, Chief," Shepard noted.

"Yeah, what can I say?" Williams gave Garrus a disgusted look.

What, Garrus wondered, was _her_ problem? They had no time for these petty little…

Shepard's arm reached across him—not touching him, just enough that he could not raise his weapon without her knowing. Evidently, she sensed his readiness to start the fight again.

If the marines wanted to play it safe, let them. He had a job to…

Shepard snapped her fingers at him, before switching places with Williams. After a moment of wordlessly conferring with Alenko, Shepard scuttled back, pantomiming an explosion with one hand.

Williams nodded, but Garrus was not sold. He had no idea what this marine was up to, and he didn't like it any more than her thug-coddling. There would be a mass of paperwork dead or alive…so why not spare the Citadel's citizenry the inconvenience of having them alive and lurking?

Things happened in a burst of action that startled him. Maybe they had a better concept of 'no time' than he gave them credit for; not only did they explode into action, but they did it seamlessly, as a team.

Shepard lobbed a tech proximity mine at the far end of the clinic. The thugs shouted as their weapons malfunctioned, Alenko's cue. The crates behind which the thugs had hunkered down suddenly lifted under his direction, allowing Shepard and Williams a clear line of fire.

Garrus jumped in so quickly he seemed in the know instead of improvising.

The firefight was over in seconds, the thugs bleeding and very dead in a corner.

"All right, you can drop the crates," Shepard broke the thick silence. Alenko, still scowling with fierce concentration, stacked the crates so they obscured the dead.

"Commander." Garrus strode forward, sticking his pistol back into its holster. "Perfect timing. Gave me a clear shot at this bastard." He nodded to the first thug he'd felled.

Alenko heaved a sigh, releasing the doctor from stasis.

Garrus found Williams and Shepard both glowering at him. One would think they'd be more grateful for some extra muscle—and accuracy—in a situation…

"What were you _thinking_? You could have hit the _hostage_!" Shepard motioned towards the pale and shaking doctor, whom Alenko was helping onto an examination table.

"Smooth move." Williams shook her head.

Garrus looked uncomfortably from one irate woman to the other, mandibles waving in confusion. He'd _saved_ the hostage, the thugs were _dead_…what was the problem? "I just…"

Shepard jammed her pistol back into its holster. "_Three_ of them! _One_ of you!"

The words were so redolent of his father—though lacking the addition 'do the math!'—that he tried to fire up, but she cut him off.

"If they were one gram smarter, they'd have _shot_ _her_! And _you_ wouldn't have had the element of surprise anymore!"

Garrus took a step back as Shepard forced herself calm. However much he disliked her tone, he could not deny even to himself that she had a point. An extremely valid point.

"There was no time!" The excuse did not fly, even in his own mind, now the pressure was off. "I didn't think…I just, _reacted_…" It had _worked_! That was what was important, right? Stop the perps, get the job done.

"Yeah, we noticed," Alenko shook his head.

Shepard, pointed warningly at Garrus, forgetting he was not one of her troops. "Then _start_ thinking." This was no time for carelessness. If he'd _thought_ about it, even for a second, she would have made allowances.


	32. Alliance

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Wrex noticed the human pack-leader saunter over, very unsubtle. From here, he could not make out much, except the vivid glint of eyes, and the probability this one was female. Females were usually smaller, but that didn't make them any less fierce.

But first, a few last words to the oh-so-charming C-Sec officers. "I don't take orders from you." He loved talking to these idiots; they were so easy to get riled up. Humans were funny when they got riled—turians just got stupid.

She was the human female from Chora's Den, and clearly she was waiting for him to wrap things up. Well, well, well. From what he could smell she wasn't thrilled to be here, and gave subtle indications of having just left a fight.

He had sub-par eyes—not _that_ bad, he argued out of habit—but he could still smell things just fine. No krogan could pick up alien pheromones, as some non-krogan assumed, but you didn't need pheromones to tell you where someone had recently been. All krogan had a decidedly keen sense of smell. It helped when one lived on Tuchanka's ravaged surface.

"This is your _only_ warning, Wrex."

Ah, back to business. These guys should really work on their tactics, if they wanted to intimidate a krogan into good behavior. "You _should_ warn _Fist_—I will kill him." The idea of a brawl breaking out here didn't trouble him. It wouldn't trouble him if the cluster of post-fight smelling humans—and the turian—decided to come to C-Sec's aid. In fact, he thought he recognized the turian…then again, like with humans, they all looked alike.

The only important differentiation was whether he was paid to kill them or not. It would not bother him, but it would put a delay in his plans for the day. Work first, fun later.

"Do you _want_ me to arrest you?"

Wrex chuckled, sadistically. Must be a new guy, a new guy with a lot of starch in him, and no survival instincts. "I'd like to see you try…"

"Go on, get out of here," the other C-Sec officer growled as Wrex turned to leave, the krogan not caring whether this 'talk' was finished.

He stopped as he reached the humans. The female still projected the aura of leadership in the pack. Beneath the adrenaline was the clinging miasma of Chora's Den. "Do I know you, kid?" He stepped right up to her, close enough to see her features clearly. The eyes were what stirred something in memory—something connected to a fight.

One of many, but one of the few that ended with him on the floor.

"My name's Shepard. The last time you saw me was just before the black clouds rolled in."

"Eh?" That really narrowed the field down…and he was sure he remembered _exactly _which occasion it was, too. The older woman had done it, with Shepard hovering in the background.

"You know, Robbins is a bare-knuckle boxer. Not someone you want to tangle with." Shepard managed to show no ill-ease at the close scrutiny by the massive krogan.

"Hmm. Maybe. So you're Shepard. _Commander_ Shepard. Small galaxy."

"That's not the half of it."

Wrex grinned, revealing blunted teeth. "Oh really? Do tell."

Shepard forced a smirk, the krogan making her nervous. He was testing her nerves, he had to be—particularly if he interpreted Robbins as her mentor. "We're heading over to see Fist." She waved to Alenko and Garrus, neither of whom liked the krogan's proximity any more than she did. "Thought you might want to tag along."

Krogan respond to confidence, and respect a warrior. They responded badly to attempts at intimidation. Her own krogan experience was limited to buying a krogan a drink to get out of a tight spot, which meant her krogan diplomacy was largely theory-based.

"Isn't that interesting? We're both warriors, Shepard, so I'll give you fair warning." Wrex leaned in further, testing the Commander's nerves.

Shepard held her ground, brows drawn together, her hand slipping subtly to her pistol.

Wrex had to look _up_ at her, given the way his shoulders were higher than his head_. _"I'm going to kill Fist." With or without her help, with or without her permission. He didn't answer to her, this was a temporary alliance so each could get what he (or she) wanted.

"Yeah. I got that." Any discomfort she felt at this up-front declaration, or Wrex's proximity, remained a personal observation only.

"He knows you're coming," Garrus warned from where he stood. From where he stood, Shepard looked as though her backbone—and probably half her ribs—were made of titanium alloy. She didn't budge, or flinch, merely gave the impression of looking Wrex in the eye without looking up at him, or down her nose.

"So long as you let me talk to him first. He's got information I need. Afterwards…you do what you've got to do," Shepard responded calmly. The unsaid portion of the sentence—a threat—was not lost on the krogan.

Wrex grinned. He could tell the Commander didn't like the idea of his shooting Fist when the 'conversing' was all done, but she was smart for realizing he _would_ get to Fist, sooner or later. Best she get there first, with his help (and arsenal of firepower) and get what she needed, without worrying about having to worry about getting there _after_ Wrex did, and the whole thing ending up a lost cause. "We have a saying among my people: seek the enemy of your enemy, and you will find a friend."

Shepherd nodded, shaking the hand the krogan extended, surprised that he did not try to crush her hand, to 'get a measure' of her. "What a coincidence. So do we." _He's a loose cannon…_yet Shepard was sure that of all the ways this could play out, she had chosen the best in the long run.

"Well," Wrex stepped back, cracking his neck. "Let's go. I hate to keep Fist waiting."


	33. Yoink

Beta-read by Saberlin.

*Forgot to mention it last update: Williams was left with Dr. Michel in case anyone else wanted to try shutting the good doctor up.

-J-

Shepard, backed by Alenko, Garrus and the krogan, Wrex, stopped in front of Fist's office door. Chora's Den lay silent behind them, full of bullet holes and dead bodies.

Moving through the employees only section, Garrus made a note to have C-Sec keep a closer eye on this place. From the look of things, Fist had expanded his repertoire of criminal activity to include smuggling. C-Sec would have noticed, eventually, but the sooner they did something about it, the better.

Shepard and Wrex positioned themselves to either side of the sliding door.

Wrex nodded to Shepard. She glanced to Garrus and Alenko, then abruptly palmed the door open. It was fortunate all four of them were clear of the walkway, for a blast of automatic gunfire ripped through the empty space.

"You missed!" Wrex roared, breaking off into dark laughter. "Come on out Fist. I don't have all day."

More gunfire.

This time, Wrex was less amused. Flexing one hand, he stepped in front of the door. Why have all those redundant organs if you weren't going to burn through them?

Alenko felt the mass effect field the krogan generated before anyone else did, though everyone present recognized what the krogan was doing. Dark energy rippled around Wrex, as he reached into the room, his expression a flat-toothed leer…

Unfortunately, his 'reach' was short. Fist yelped, but did not come flying back into the midst of the raiding party, and Wrex dodged to the side as more gunfire erupted—accompanied by the shrill laugh of a man who knows he's cornered, but has dodged at least one bullet.

Wrex was mad enough to kill—which was good, seeing as to how that was the end goal of this job. Still, it was embarrassing to miss like that; while dead men told no tales, Shepard and her crew…well, she was a smart kid. And ran her people on a short leash, or so it seemed to him.

"Fish him out, Alenko!" Shepard glanced at Wrex, mildly disappointed. How anticlimactic…the centuries-old krogan _missed. _"I don't want to wait for him to run out of rounds," Shepard murmured, her words hidden by the combination of Fist taunting Wrex, and Wrex swearing further at his misjudged attempt to reel Fist in like a fish.

It was too much for Wrex to have that hotshot human biotic rectifying his mistakes. If he ever had to spend more than two minutes with the Lieutenant, he was going to see that between sarcasm and rankling, the toy soldier officer would never have a moment's peace.

Alenko nodded, reaching forward to nudge Shepard back, so he could stand in her place.

Fist yelped as Alenko's mass effect field caught him, yanked him over the desk, slammed him onto the floor, and dragged him into the midst of the mix of Alliance soldiers, C-Sec, and one pissed-off bounty hunter.

Facing four heavily armed opponents, without the benefits of his office's movable turrets, Fist did the only thing he could do. He appealed to the Alliance, raising his hands to show himself unarmed. "Wait! Don't-don't shoot me! I surrender."

Shepard leveled her shotgun at him. "Where's the quarian?"

Fist gaped until Shepard's finger moved towards the trigger. "I don't know! She's not here! That's the truth!"

Alenko and Garrus exchanged looks. "You're a bad liar, Fist," Garrus rumbled.

"He's no use to you, Shepard," Wrex gave Fist a glance of utter distaste. "Let me kill him. Get this over with."

Fist panicked, but did not get further than pushing himself onto his elbows before Wrex planted a flat foot on his chest, aiming at his head. "Stand back; spattered brains're messy."

"Wait-wait! I don't know where the quarian is…but I know where you can find her."

"It's the same thing," Alenko murmured, pulling a face.

"He's always that stupid," Garrus rumbled back. "It's why we let him stay in charge down here."

"Ouch."

"She's not here. She said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself."

"Impossible. Even _I_ was hired through an agent. He's wasting your time." Wrex glowered at Fist, watching the human shudder. Pathetic.

"Nobody meets with the Shadow Broker. Even I don't know who he is. But she didn't know that. I told her I'd set something up…but when she shows, it'll be Saren's men waiting for her."

Shepard's expression hardened. "Tell me where. Now."

Fist flinched as Shepard took a step forward, and again when the krogan removed his foot. She could blast his stomach wide open, probably let him bleed to death, too. And here he'd thought the krogan was the worst of his problems… "Here in the wards. The back alley by the markets. The meeting should happen soon, if it hasn't started already. You can make it if you run."

Shepard gave Fist one piercing look, then she lowered her shotgun, and turned around. For a moment she stood as though undecided, then waved to her teammates. "Let's go." She ushered Alenko and Garrus out in front of her.

The door slid closed, muffling the single blast from Wrex's shotgun. Shepard's expression indicated she did not like how this had played out. She would have preferred something more on the up and up, but she said nothing, only picked up her pace, shotgun at the ready.

Wrex rejoined the group a few moments later. "You're a geek. Fist had these." He handed Shepard several OSDs.

Shepard wordlessly took them, as the team spilled out onto the approach between the club and the Ward access ways.

"I told you I was going to kill Fist."

"I didn't stop you, did I?" Shepard responded, breaking into a jog.

"No, but you're acting like you've never seen a dead body before. Or like I lied to you." Not that this bothered Wrex in the slightest.

"Drop it. If you've got breath to talk, you've got breath to run," Shepard responded stiffly.

Wrex chuckled sadistically. Smart kid. If she'd toughen up a bit, she'd go far.


	34. Stars

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya did not like how things were happening. It made her skin crawl in her suit. She still ached from having been shot, still felt the persistent press of anxiety and paranoia. Or _was_ it paranoia? "Where's the Shadow Broker?" she demanded tersely of the turian facing her. "Where's Fist?"

Her heart sped up, a bead of sweat sliding from her temple, down her cheek to her jaw. This was wrong, it was all wrong.

"Relax," the turian purred, running one taloned finger from her shoulder to her elbow, before she pulled away. "He'll be here. You have the data?"

"No way," she took a few steps back, subtly producing a previously manufactured tech mine. "The deal's off."

She did not see how or when things began to go wrong. One moment the turian looked ready to rip her face off, the next she heard people behind her, doors ahead of her hissing. She dropped her tech mine, determined to make a break for it—and avoid being shot, if it was quarianly possible.

"_Fire in the hole_!" A strong female voice barked.

Tali shouted as a flare of white light scrambled her eyes. Something _pushed_ against her, slamming her clumsily to the ground. Her shoulder knocked into the wall, and despite her attempt to get back up, she failed.

"You okay?" A hoarse voice demanded, with more concern than harshness. A hand replaced the pressure—a biotic attack, she realized.

Gunfire erupted from beyond her faceless guardian. Tali _wished_ he would let her up—she was _not_ helpless.

A sickening crunch nearby made Tali wince, as she struggled to her knees. To her surprise, no one stopped her, though a hand appeared under her elbow to steady her as she wobbled, her vision beginning to return.

"Clear?" the first voice, the one who had warned of the impending flash, demanded.

"It was like shooting fish in a barrel, Shepard. Do you really need to ask?"

"All clear," a turian voice rumbled.

"Alenko, you got her?"

"Got her, Commander," the hoarse voice at her shoulder responded, before it was turned to her. "Are you all right?"

Tali continued blinking stars from her vision. "I'm fine…" if she could just get the stars to hurry up and fade. Shadowy shapes began manifesting. A small figure, small compared to the tall turian shape and what had to be a krogan remained out of arms' reach, careful not to crowd.

"Dammit, Fist set me up," she grunted, rubbing her side, where the gunshot ached in earnest, what with all her jumping around. The red lights of this section of the Wards' access tunnels.

"'Fraid so."

"Not that I don't appreciate your help, but…" Tali turned to watch the woman move to investigate the damage done by the quarian's tech mine. The two salarains who had been with the original turian lay dead, one with a bullethole between his eyes, the other without a head, thanks to a shotgun blast.

"I'm Commander Shepard, Human Systems Alliance, you're standing with Lt. Alenko. Officer Vakarian is C-Sec and Wrex…is an independent interest." Wrex chuckled sinisterly, making Tali wanted to get as far away from the krogan as she feasibly could.

"We really are here to help you." Alenko must have noted her attempt to shy away.

"If you weren't, we wouldn't be talking, I'm sure…" Tali cleared her throat uncomfortably.

"What's your name?" Shepard returned from examining the wreckage, holding what was left of the tech mine. Tali found she could pick out details about Shepard's face from the mass of gray-black, which had to be armor.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya." Tali drew herself up, wishing she felt a little more confident in the situation.

"Tali'Xoar…say it again?"

Well, at least the Commander thought to ask. "Just Tali," Tali twisted her hands. "Do I want to know what it is you want?" They had to want something.

"We spoke with Dr. Michel, she said you might have some information linking a turian by the name of Saren to the geth. That's why you're being hunted, you know, they're probably Saren's men," Shepard answered kindly, kindly but not patronizingly.

"Then I may have a chance to thank you for saving me. This information is rapidly becoming more trouble than it's worth. If you want it, it's yours, Commander…but not here."

"Agreed," Shepard glanced back at the bodies. "Come on, the keepers will take care of the mess if we give them enough time…unless you want to run interference for us?" Shepard directed this last bit to Garrus.

"Head on back to the clinic, I'll do what I can with C-Sec, and catch up with you later. Shouldn't be hard," Garrus walked over to one of the bodies, prodding it with a foot. "Officer Vakarian to Central Hub—we have an altercation involving a C-Sec officer in the Lower Wards…"

Tali wobbled as she started off after Shepard, leaving Garrus to his radio.

Alenko put out a hand to catch her as she overbalanced. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Just seeing stars…" Tali blinked rapidly, until her eyes teared up. Little white flashes continued sparking across her vision, even if she had recovered most of her object and color recognition—so far as she _had_ color recognition through her smoky visor.

"Sorry about that," Shepard's apology was accompanied by a rueful chuckle. That was the risk with flash-bangs, you could not always warn everyone without warning the enemy as well."I think things will cool down around you from here on in."

"Thank you, Commander, but I can take care of myself." No one contested this, and Tali knew there was a certain margin of disbelief in the air. Shepard, whatever she might have thought, examined the tech mine again, before shrugging, as though to say 'it's a nice piece of work'.

It had better be a nice piece of work, Tali thought as the last of the stars cleared. No one knew tech like a quarian.


	35. Fencing

Beta-read by Saberlin.

*Wrex is not in attendance for this meeting; I can't see him as sticking around for all the chatter.

-J-

"This evidence is irrefutable, Ambassador," the turian councilor declared evenly, his beady eyes fixed upon Udina, and not the rest of the human pack, the turian, or the quarian hanger-on. "Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in, to answer for his crimes."

Alenko groaned inwardly. There it was, politician speak. They were not going to catch Saren. They were going to let him rocket around doing whatever he wanted…

Shepard shifted, in that distinctive shuffle of hers, as if she was preparing to go for the turian equivalent of a jugular. He wished she _would_, but there—what could Shepard do? She was a Lt. Commander in the Systems Alliance. That meant something to most of the humans assembled here, but not to anyone else.  
"I recognize the other voice," the asari frowned. "Matriarch Benezia."

"Who's she?" Shepard's voice revealed nothing of her thoughts, as though she was completely unruffled. Inwardly, she was far from it, and all the success of her efforts was due only to long practice. This was ridiculous, and the reason she would never make captain—too much politicking for a contented field woman.

"Matriarchs have entered the final stage of their lives. They serve as guides and mentors for our people. Matriarch Benezia is a powerful biotic; she has many followers. She will make a formidable ally for Saren."

Alenko knew it. Powerful, biotic, and in charge. More or less. This was getting better and better.

"I'm more interested in these Reapers." The salarian councilor blinked his massive eyes slowly. "What do you know about them?"

"Only what...Tali," no one heard Shepard softly supply Tali's name, for Anderson had only heard it once or twice in the middle of, to him, more important matters. Like evidence to damn Saren. "recovered from the geth's memory core. According to the geth, the Reapers were an ancient race of sentient machines that wiped out the Protheans. Then they vanished."

Tali gnawed the inside of her cheek, disliking the sensation of standing in a bright spotlight. The turian councilor kept glancing at her, as though questioning _why _a _quarian _was in the Council Chambers: they had, after all, lost their embassy. What business could they possibly have here?

She hated his guts.

Shepard glanced at Anderson again, before clearing her throat softly. Once she had everyone's attention, she spoke in that carefully neutral tone. It made her sound like a bookworm, Williams decided, the woman with all the answers. It was a great façade to have, particularly for a soldier. Non-soldiers seemed to labor under the impression that _everyone_ in the service were all about guns, ammunition, and kicking in doors.

"The geth revere the Reapers. They believe Saren knows how to bring them back…like he's some kind of prophet. Needless to say, that's bad news for us."

The understatement made Alenko glance over at her. Shepard did not intercept the look, but then, she only had two eyes and both were focused on the Council. "We think the Conduit is the key to bringing them back, that's why Saren has the geth looking for it," Anderson concluded, once Shepard lapsed into silence.

It was like standing in a room with several lions and two lion tamers, Shepard and Anderson holding the chairs and the whips to keep the creatures herded about. It took nerves of steel, and speaking of nerves, Udina was being awfully quiet.

"But do we know what this Conduit _is_?" The salarian councilor pressed.

"Saren thinks it could bring back the Reapers; it motivates the geth to be his rifle fodder. Isn't that bad enough?"

"Listen to what you're saying!" The turian cut in angrily, his mandibles waving in irritation. Alenko did not like to call anyone species-ist, but it looked to _him_ as though the turian might be.

Garrus agreed, shifting restlessly, his mandibles pulled close to his chin in a frown.

"_Saren_ wants to bring back the machines that supposedly wiped out all life in the galaxy?" The turian councilor paused to give the absurdity time to sink in."Impossible. It has to be. Why did they vanish?" He threw the question at Shepard. "Where did they go? How come we've found absolutely no trace of their existence? If they were real, we'd have found _something_."

"Maybe Saren has. This Council is burdened with many weighty matters; Saren is intelligent enough to exploit that trust."

Very nice. Very diplomatic, and a whole lot of snake oil—yet no one could call it that without inexcusable rudeness. Why hadn't Shepard gone into law? She definitely had the gift for it…but Alenko noticed that when she spoke, she addressed the turian councilor.

Odd. He was the least likely to listen to her.

"Councilors, we tried to warn you about Saren, and you didn't listen. Please, don't make the same mistake again." There was the sting. Thank goodness this was a meeting not open to the public. It would not do for this sort of thing to spread too far.

"This is entirely different," the asari cut in, rather sharply. Someone did not like being wrong. "We all agree that Saren has betrayed the Council. We all agree that he is using the geth to search for this Conduit. We do not, however, know why."

"The Reapers are obviously a myth," the salarian directed this at his counterparts, but also at Shepard, "a convenient tale Saren is twisting to cover his true purpose, and bend the geth to his will."

"If Saren finds this Conduit, he's going to use it. With all due respect, Councilors, I don't think it's going to spray fluffy bunnies and roses all over the galaxy."

Silence, punctuated by smirks from some of those present, and more than few dirty looks at Shepard.

Fluffy bunnies and roses, huh? If the Council didn't pull themselves together, they were going to find themselves in a corner with a verbal foil at their collective throats.


	36. Checkmate

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams was not as deft at concealing her sour look as Alenko, nor as well as Shepard. Must come from being an officer, since subordinates needed their seniors to know what was going on, counted on them to have some semblance of control. If the right expression was all one needed, Shepard had this conversation not only in hand, but going in the direction she wanted.

However, the tension in her posture and the intensity about her indicated that Shepard knew she was feeling her way along in the dark.

Williams always knew the Council was a bunch of anti-human idiots, but the reality took the cake. The turian Councilor was just mad because Saren was a turian too, and turians were a pretty clannish lot—though that raised a few questions about Garrus' involvement with all this.

"Saren is a rogue agent, on the run for his life. He no longer has the rights or resources of a Spectre." the turian councilor retorted, to Shepard's carefully stated sarcasm. "The Council has stripped him of his position."

"That's not good enough!" Udina cut in before Shepard could say anything else.

Williams wanted to groan: right, wrong, or indifferent, Udina made the bile rise up her throat. The man was a walking cause of indigestion. Had anyone else said it, she would have agreed that they had a point, but since it was Udina talking...

"You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse, send your fleet in!"

Tali stepped involuntarily back at the vehemence of the demand. Was _this_ the best politician humans could muster? He seemed more likely to hurt humanity's interests than help them. Strange that a soldier should be more well-spoken...but what did she know about human political structure?

"A fleet cannot track down one man, Ambassador," the salarian rightly pointed out.

No, a fleet couldn't, Williams agreed, wondering why Shepard's aura had changed. Whereas before it was all intensity, like a tiger ready to spring, the air around Shepard had eased.

Williams blinked owlishly at the Commander's back: Shepard had not eased off, she was _using _Udina. Shepard's patient neutrality made Udina seem all the more irritating and obnoxious…made her seem the reasonable one, the one to deal with.

Powers of observation. A good officer had to have them, and Williams wondered how many times Shepard had been called upon the carpet to defend someone else's actions. That would explain why she was so adept in here. Armchair generals tended to get touchy when confronted with those who had served every day of their lives since the tender age of eighteen.

"A Citadel fleet could secure the entire sector! Keep the geth from attacking anymore of our colonies!" Udina roared, the vein in his forehead, and another barely visible above his collar, standing out like Skyllian bore worms.

"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems!" the turian councilor spat. "We won't be dragged into a galactic conflict over a few _human_ colonies!"

He had said the wrong thing.

Shepard jumped in, having taken advantage of Udina's tirade-like statements to draw all attention away from her. "Of course not." The words fell like stones down a deep well. "I know that better than most, Councilor. Humanity has had colonies raided before; we have always dealt with the fallout. On our own. This time is _different_. These attacks were or will be backed by a former member of the Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch. Unfortunately, most people cannot differentiate between a Spectre and a former Spectre."

Alenko took a deep breath, and held it. Had Shepard just accused the Council of protecting a known human-hater on an active anti-human campaign? Even if the Council did not believe in Reapers, they could not afford to look as though they supported a turian leading a war against humanity.

Nor could they do nothing. Anti-Council sentiment would crest, the political blowback could be…catastrophic. If he _ever _needed an advocate, he would have no doubt this superior officer could handle the case.

Shepard continued prowling along her chosen path. "For the Council to fail to take full and sole responsibility for this rogue agent, to fail to rectify this problem, or fail to intervene on behalf of those this agent has wronged…it might send the wrong messages."

Williams had no use for politics, but watching Shepard maneuver these people with logic, was good for the soul. She did not think, however, that Shepard was surprising the asari. In fact, Williams could almost see resigned acceptance of some outcome or other in that blue face.

So...who was really maneuvering whom? Or was there _any _maneuvering really going on at all, at the heart of the matter? The asari did seem to be the Council's lead hat...

The turian councilor gripped the edges of his terminal more tightly than at any point previously.

"Then it is very fortunate that there is another solution. A way to stop Saren," the asari confirmed Williams' suspicions, looking to the turian as she spoke, "Without fleets. Or armies."

They wouldn't…

The turian caught on faster than Ambassador Udina. "No! It's too soon! Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities! They…" he trailed off under the asari's warning look. The three councilors exchanged looks, which all ended in capitulation to the asari's as-yet unspoken plan of action.

"Commander Shepard. Please step forward."

Shepard gritted her teeth, sucking the inside of her lower lip back against them. Here it was: she was throwing herself into shark infested water. Good cause or not, good for the Alliance or not, she wished it could be someone else…but not just _anyone _else. There were a lot of people she would rather not see in the role of Spectre.

Udina backed away, letting Shepard stand alone before the Council, at the center of attention.

"It is the decision of this Council that you shall be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel."


	37. Celebrity

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard's group was halfway to the elevator at the end of the Citadel Tower before they stopped walking. It was also the point at which people stopped popping up out of the woodwork, hoping to shake Shepard's hand, or give her good wishes. Shepard, despite the fact that she was _starving_, took it in stride, smiled, shook hands, and generally radiated pleasantness.

It was a relief when the stream of humans finally stopped flowing past, letting the marines get back to business. "Congratulations, Shepard," Capt. Anderson shook Shepard's hand firmly.

Shepard beamed, vaguely lightheaded, stunned by the idea and implications of being a Spectre. "Thank you, Captain."

Udina tapped his fingers on his folded arms. "We've got a lot of work to do, Shepard. You'll need a ship, a crew, supplies…" He shook his head, not noticing no one had paid much attention to his comment.

"Spectres get supplies through C-Sec, so you might want to swing by sometime." Capt. Anderson looked around, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "It's the good stuff. Trust me."

With his record, the captain could be counted on to know what the good stuff actually was without relying on hearsay. The red triangular N7 pin on his collar said so.

This statement also confirmed her theory that his knowledge of the Spectres was more personal than anyone—barring that ass Harkin—wanted to let on. She could cobble together a likely scenario with the information she had: Saren and Anderson playing the roles of Nihilus and Shepard, respectively. She couldn't even begin to draw conclusions about what happened next, only that it was _bad_, and Capt. Anderson ended up taking the blame. "So what, do I put it on the Alliance's credit card?"

Capt. Anderson shook his head. "Spectres are special."

Shepard sighed. "Well, I'm thinking…"

"Anderson," Udina interrupted the conversation, seemingly unaware that he had done so. "Come with me. I'll need your help to set all of this up." He strode off, apparently expecting Capt. Anderson to follow obediently.

Williams grimaced, shaking her head. What a slug.

"Take some time, do the tourist thing," Capt. Anderson patted Shepard's shoulder bracingly before following Udina.

"Is anyone else here _starving_?" Shepard asked, after a moment's pause, as if just noticing her own hunger.

Unexpected question or not, they all knew the saying: when told to stand, sit. When told to sit, take a nap. When told to eat, eat: you never know when the next chance will be.

-J-

Garrus recommended the club Flux as the place to go. The trouble was getting there.

Shepard was not sure who had called the press, but the press was waiting when Shepard, Alenko, Williams, Garrus and Tali poured out of the elevator. The entanglement did not last long—just long enough for Shepard to make it quite clear that she did not intend to say anything particularly useful to the press.

Saren would probably see the broadcast; she didn't want to give him any more information than he already had. All in all, Shepard felt she ought to be congratulated as Garrus led the way. At the turnoff to the club, he detached himself from the group, somewhat to Shepard's surprise, citing that he had a few things to take care of…

…but that he would like to rejoin them later, if that was all right.

Shepard watched Garrus go before leading the way up to the club.

Afternoon as it was, Flux was lit as though by large, bay windows, not the neon nightlife ambiance Shepard would expect later in the evening. The music was loud, but did not jar her bones.

Striding up to the volus bartender, Shepard leaned on the counter. Not exactly fast food, but Garrus said the place was good. She had no reason to disbelieve him.

"What can I do for you, earth-clan?" the volus asked, craning to look at the towering human.

"I need to feed four marines…"

Tali blinked behind her visor. She counted _three_.

"…and a quar…"

"Nothing for me, thanks. I brought my own," Tali interjected.

"Are you sure?" Surely, Shepard thought, the suit allowed a person to _drink._

Tali chuckled. "Little difficult with the environmental suit, Commander," she pointed out gently.

"Right…so, what's good here?"

The volus chuckled, and produced a datapad.

"Oh shit…" Williams gaped at the inevitable vidscreen, propped in a corner where those not watching the dance floor could see it. "Commander…"

"Oh no…" Shepard followed Williams' gaze to see her own face plastered on the screen. "…can't even wait for a marine to get lunch…" She strode away from the bar, before throwing herself into a chair facing a wall, leaving Tali, Williams and Alenko to fall in at leisure.

Shepard shoved the datapad towards the center of the table. Having seen 'barbecue' and 'ribs' she knew what she wanted. And an Astro-Fizz. The _biggest_ Astro-Fizz she could get her hands on.

It was _that_ kind of day.

Alenko eyed the menu thoughtfully. The idea of three marines having the appetite of four was not so far off the mark. Breakfast seemed a long time ago, and waiting was hard work.

So, Williams followed a similar line of thought, was politicking and legalese tap dancing.

"Good afternoon—are you together?"

Before Williams and Alenko could do more than shift to get to wallets, Shepard waved. "We're together, I've got it…" The truth was, apart from being hungry in the middle of a tumultuous afternoon—and not the turmoil she was used to—she didn't want to face the media alone.

She _could_, she simply did not _want _to.

Tali shifted nervously, glad to be screened by Alenko's imposing bulk. She wondered if he noticed, at some point, her discomfort on the trip down, and had purposely shuffled her so she could sit close to the wall.

"I'd like...the ribs. And Astro-Fizz."

Alenko's imperfectly-repressed expression nearly made Shepard's day.

It was the sound of Shepard laughing quietly that snapped Alenko out of his surprise.

_Astro-Fizz_?


	38. Leaving

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus strode past the marines and Tali towards the stairs that would lead him down into the C-Sec Academy. "Heya Garrus!" Officer Lang waved.

"Hey Eddie." Normally, Garrus might have stopped to chat but not today. The C-Sec Academy's placement made it a hub of sorts. It was faster to get from the Presidium to the wards, by going through C-Sec.

The twisting, blue-lit corridors passed in a blur. Occasionally a fellow officer would hail Garrus—either to tease him about looking ready to save half the galaxy (and blow up the other half in the process) or to congratulate him on completing his investigation, despite the fact that completion came about later than expected.

Yes, the investigation part was over. Saren was ousted as the treacherous scum-sucker he was. But the grunt work, the get your talons dirty and peg the perp work wasn't. Not by a long shot.

He wanted to be there to help take Saren down. He'd find a way to convince Commander Shepard to take him along. She wasn't unreasonable. In fact she was very reasonable, he just needed to come up with a good reason. She'd let him tag along while ferreting out Fist, after all.

Being on the Executor's shitlist did not mean much to a Spectre; nor did havign a C-Sec officer on staff who was also on that shitlist.

Though not so far down the Executor was looking for reasons to get rid of him. Not like Harkin. _There_ was a disgrace to a species.

He was not hung up on being C-Sec to the core, he could follow orders without feeling conflicted. He had contacts both in C-Sec and out of it. Contacts the Commander might find useful. Who knew what they might overhear that might end up being valuable?

He picked up his pace, stepping into the elevator that would take him up to the presidium.

The elevator let him off, and Garrus strode forward, feeling anticipation, and general readiness to go do something come to a rolling boil. The Commander was open-minded. She didn't mind nonhumans. That Chief did, but Shepard kept a good rein on her people.

The doors to Executor Pallin's office hissed open. "Garrus." Executor Pallin rubbed his temple. Probably come in to smirk and do the 'I told you so' dance. Pallin was in no mood for it today, not when he was still sorting out all the crap on his desk. Crap Garrus had contributed to in no small way. The boy had talent, he had potential…

…and an itchy trigger talon. If it wouldn't have affected Garrus' ability to do his job—and do it well, overlooking Garrus' disdain for rules, regs, and SOPs—Pallin would have suggested the kid get some medication. Help him calm down a little. Slow his mind down enough to think.

Garrus stopped in front of the Executor's desk, radiating tension and readiness, his mandibles waving.

"There's plenty to do, Garrus. It's on your desk. You remember where your desk _is_, don't you?" Pallin asked, looking up.

Garrus tossed his C-Sec badge on the Executor's desk. "I quit."

"What is it this time, Garrus?" Pallin picked up the badge, nonplussed, expecting Garrus to break in a rant about some red tape or other.

"I quit. I'm going after Saren with Shepard." Or he would, as soon as he convinced her it was a good idea. Definitely not something he wanted to try before she'd gotten lunch.

Pallin sighed, dropping the badge. Garrus was correct in assuming he knew who Shepard was. "I'd heard the humans finally got in. It's a political stunt Garrus."

"She'll get him."

"No, she'll get _dead_. Have you read her files? _Any_ of her files?" The news had come to Pallin first, so C-Sec's upper echelon would know Shepard really was a Spectre when she showed up to requisitions.

Pallin had also read her security-accessible file. Orphan. No family, no clan. Childhood trauma. Batarian hunter. Hero. Always in the right place at the right time, throwing herself heedlessly into something dangerous.

The sort of person who ended up very dead. She was living on borrowed time.

Pallin did not need Garrus shifting from foot to foot to know the younger turian had not read even this much about his new hero. "I have. Half her crew is going to end up dead. The other half will wish they were. Let it go, Garrus. You'll do more good here."

Garrus shook his head. "I'm going, Venari."

"Your dad's not going to like this." No, Vakarian senior wouldn't like it at all.

Yes, his dad was a fan of the 'do it right or don't do it at all' camp, where 'right' meant 'by the book'. Garrus grit his sharp teeth. "No, I expect he _won't_. But I intend to _own_ my decisions."

"Then what are you doing in my office? We've done the 'I'm quitting' thing what, six times now? You're C-Sec, Garrus, through and through. Grab your badge, grab a case, and get out there." Pallin pointed in the general direction of the wards.

"Why? I catch a perp, and he's loose two days later. I'm done." Garrus turned on his heel, both irritated and as though his sense of balance was off. Perhaps it was the weight of red tape and rule books full of small print landing on the floor as he shook them off.

Pallin was right: Garrus' father _would_ be livid when he found out.

But Shepard understood what was at stake. _She_ wouldn't let Saren squiggle loose…

Garrus also decided he had better get hold of her censored file. There was obviously something in there to make Pallin more unreasonable than usual. Pallin hated Specters for being above the law. He disliked humans because they were loud, pushy, and had achieved more in less time than most other species had.

But when Pallin hinted someone was on the path to self destruction, it was usually an objective observation.


	39. Unexpected

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Wrex had ensconced himself in one of the many dingy bars in the lower wards after parting ways with Shepard. That was some hours ago, more than enough time for her to get into trouble, more than enough time for him to decide where to go from here.

Where the credits were, obviously.

His barstool was _not_ meant to accommodate a krogan, and was not very comfortable. But the booze was cheap and it was a part of town where no one talked to you without a reason.

Being a krogan, there were only two reasons anyone would want to bother him, and both involved his shotgun at some point. He didn't really care whether he pointed it at the speaker (for being an ass) or at someone else (which was business).

Right now, he was open to new business.

After he finished this drink. And the next. And maybe a couple more.

The blare of the vidscreen was loud, preventing eavesdropping on private conversations. It was why this kind of place was good for private talks: no one could hear what was actually said unless they were up close, because of the damn vidscreen.

"...A group of krogan investors has settled out of court with Binary Helix. The group contracted Binary Helix with the long term goal of finding a cure for the genophage, but later sued the corporation when studies produced no viable results…"

Wrex downed his drink, then rapped the counter for another one. Now he would _really_ need a couple more drinks.

"…and in other news, humanity has made a monumental step forward on galactic…"

"Will you turn that crap off?" A turian patron snarled at the bartender, looking up from whatever he was cooing to the asari on his lap.

"Wait. Leave it," Wrex rumbled, standing up, his red eyes fixed upon the screen.

The bartender knew the krogan could and would cause more trouble than the turian. The screen stayed lit, the channel stayed where it was.

The flash of vivid eyes that were neither blue, nor green, standing out in a sea of pale face above a dark collar caught and held Wrex's attention.

He squinted, his vision clearing slightly—there was a reason he used a shotgun. "_Shepard_…" Well, well, well.

"…Alliance Lieutenant Commander Jalissa Shepard was inducted into Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance —the Spectres—this afternoon…"

Wrex's lips spread into his usual flat-toothed leer as the still frame of Shepard give way to live footage.

"I'm sorry," Shepard declared firmly, evidently unsure which camera she ought to look towards, "I am not authorized to give any details at this time, about what my mission may or may not entail."

That was all right; anyone in the Council meeting would talk. Talk gave way to speculation. It was why they were called 'anonymous sources on the Citadel'. Wrex tossed back his drink.

Spectre Shepard. Unexpected. Unexpected and interesting.

"Commander Shepard! What would you say to those who argue humanity's not ready to have a place in the Spectres?"

This time she seemed to know which camera to look at. "They have the right to that opinion."

The turian was sneering again—accusing Shepard of kissing up the press—and it irritated Wrex. Not because it was untrue, but because he did not like turians...and Shepard had made a good impression.

Wrex could afford to be irritated.

Or maybe he was simply in a mood to _be_ irritated. It usually led to a fight, and given the choice… "Shut up. I'm watching the news," Wrex rumbled, missing the next question, a question Shepard apparently didn't like.

The turian looked ready to argue, but quelled between the murmurings of his asari, and the look Wrex gave him. Wrex carried a shotgun. The turian did not seem to be armed. No contest.

"You do realize this is probably a live broadcast, don't you?" Shepard asked, a laugh in her tone, but with the unspoken implication that the questioner was an ass, and should keep his mouth shut.

Wrex wondered what the question was.

Off camera, several other reporters laughed.

"…and there you have it," the newscaster was back, the frame of Shepard freezing and shrinking to a small window hovering by his shoulder.

Wrex put his empty glass down, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Well, wasn't this an interesting turn of events? He could guess what Shepard was up to without much effort.

She was going after Saren. She was also probably still hauling around that biotic of hers—Wrex couldn't quite stifle the lingering annoyance of the miss when trying to grab Fist biotically. Worse, that the human ended up doing it—and the turian and the quarian were probably still hanging on Shepard's coattails.

She'd never get anything done. And if she was hunting a Spectre—the Council could take away the title, but not the skill sets—there'd be plenty of shooting. Geth exploded. Most enemies didn't do that. It'd be something to see.

Some people just needed to be removed from the galaxy, and Saren was one of them. Wrex, toting his shotgun, started for the doors. Behind him the channel changed to something meaningless, but less irksome to the turian.

That was fine. It wasn't as though he was sticking around to listen. The doors of the bar hissed closed behind him, letting Wrex into the wards. That stool was really uncomfortable. Now that he was off it, his spine was protesting the use of it.

It'd pass—it was a bit of a walk to get anywhere from here.

Given enough time he could construct an argument as to why he wanted to go. One that did not sound too altruistic. Citing a grudge that didn't really exist—the other mercs working for Saren were stupid, with no survival instincts and got what they deserved—with enough menace to keep Shepard from asking too many questions sounded good.

Humans liked to ask questions. Especially 'why' questions. It was annoying.


	40. Perspective

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams knew something unpleasant was brewing. The feeling was like extra-coarse standard-issue woolly socks rubbing up against a bare arm, while the skin ached as it did when she had a cold. She did not _mind_ kicking her heels while Shepard was closeted with Udina and Anderson—in fact, she preferred it this way—but it was _really _boring.

Udina made her want to shoot things. She knew for a fact that he elicited similar feelings from Shepard and Alenko, but Alenko was too much of a poster boy to admit it and Shepard…well, she would admit it when she could guarantee it would not reach the wrong ears.

It was in casting around for a distraction that she found one. "Samesh?" The man wandering dejectedly out of the Embassy Lounge stopped, looking around for the source of the call. Williams moved forward, queasy but unable to pretend to be invisible. "Samesh Bhatia?"

"That is who I am…" He frowned at her.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams," his face indicated recognition and surprise, "I served with Nirali."

"Chief Williams! It is good to meet you." He shook her hand warmly, if distractedly.

"What are you doing here?" Of all the places in the galaxy and she ran into him here…

Samesh heaved a heavy sigh, shaking his head. "It is…about Nirali…"

Williams' expression grew grim as she listened. "Look, my CO is here…maybe…I'll talk to her, okay?" She was not sure what Shepard could—or would—do, but she had to ask. Shepard was there on Eden Prime…

-J-

Shepard did not feel like solving anyone else's problems, not after finding out that the Captain had been thrown under the CRT car. The tiredness showed on her face, despite the fact it was not yet lunchtime.

"Commander!" Williams stood leaning against the wall opposite the human embassy.

"Yes, Chief?"

Williams watched Shepard try to shake off whatever troubled her, the better to contend with whatever new situation had cropped up. Williams almost felt bad for asking, as Shepard looked as though she was digesting some very unpleasant news...but this was not a favor for herself. This was a favor for someone who had lost his wife.

Williams launched into a brisk description of the situation Samesh faced, expressing the hope—his and hers—that there might be a way to intervene, or…something. What exactly 'something' was stayed up in the air. Williams was not an officer, nor did she want to be one.

"they didn't say why they were holding the body?"

"No, they're just stonewalling him. The clerk in charge of the case is here on the Citadel, that's how I found out about it…and…"

"I know." Williams nodded to Shepard's assertion. Whatever was on Shepard's plate had successfully been put in the fridge for later, leaving her free to deal with this fresh steaming cup of trouble.

Shepard pulled Williams off to stand by the wall, keeping her voice down. This was, after all, a private conversation—or as private as one could get in the Citadel Embassy. "Williams, I know why they haven't released her body: they want to research the effects of geth weap—"

"You _can't_ support that!" Williams broke in. She _thought_ Shepard was a humanitarian! It wasn't _ethical _to just…snatch the body like that, with no consideration to surviving family members!

Shepard grabbed her temper like the leash on a wayward dog. "…in hopes of coming up with better defenses. I _didn't_ say they went about it the right way, I simply _said_ what they were doing."

Williams clenched her jaw, to keep any further outbursts to herself. They _were_, after all, in uniform. Given this explanation, she could see where this was going, but on principle—because the Alliance failed to secure permission—she was all for getting the body back out of orneriness.

"I don't mind doing as Mr. Bhatia asks, but I do want him to make an informed choice—he's only got one side of the credit chit. So, let's go talk to him, and if he feels the better way to honor her is to take her home, then that's what we'll do."

Williams nodded, embarrassed at her outburst, but reassured by Shepard's careful neutrality. There was no way Shepard could actually feel as neutral as she sounded. Williams _did_ believe in the research, if she forced emotions off to the side, and looked through the glass of neutrality…

…but _only_ if properly arranged: the voluntary agreement of the surviving family members was an integral part.

Forgetting that the dead had families was unethical; that was her opinion and she was going to stick with it. It was part of being a Williams: one exhibited sheer stubbornness.

It would have been easy for Shepard to point out that since Nirali chose to dedicate her life to service, she might well condone putting her death to good use. Shepard could also have pointed out that forgoing the funeral _now_, waiting for the research to finish might save a hundred others from sharing the same grief Samesh was experiencing. She would have been in the right to make note of these things, since they were genuine facts.

However, to William's relief—Samesh was having a bad enough time without cold logic thrown at him like rock-filled snowballs—Shepard did neither. She simply pointed out that she would, of course, do what she could and she would do as he thought was best—before presenting the Alliance's side of the argument.

When Samesh insisted, in agony, that his wife _should_ be returned to him, Shepard inclined her head, told Williams to stay with him, and headed for the Embassy Lounge.

Williams fidgeted. For a few moments she expected, honestly expected the by-the-book Commander to tell her the Alliance had things right and it was not their job to interfere.

Minutes later, a fair-haired man trotted out quickly, Shepard following at a leisurely pace.

Shepard met Williams' eyes first, then Samesh's. "She's coming home."


	41. Cutoff

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Commander Shepard sat in the mess hall, late at night after a stressful day. She idly toyed with an Astro-Fizz, as the day caught up with her.

She was tired, too tired to sleep. The caffeine in the soft drink was not doing her any favors, but she would rather have the fizzy, sugar-free bliss than sit here alone. Astro-Fizz could be (and had been previously) good company.

Human Spectre. The two words were incongruous. Even more incongruous: Jalissa A. Shepard, first human Spectre.

It was a responsibility she did not want, but she was stuck with it.

On top of that, it was a political move; everyone involved knew it. It let the Council weasel out of doing anything about Saren, it kept the human ambassador happy (maybe even keep him _quiet _for a few days), and it made the Alliance happy to have one of their 'best and brightest' accorded the auspicious position.

No one had asked Shepard what it felt like to 'make the cutoff'. Yet.

Yes, she wanted to find and nail Saren: the turian was a slug with a gun and needed taking down. But for all practical purposes, she could not overlook the fact that she was a Spectre in name only, and he...well, he had been in this business for...a long time.

And taking away his status did not automatically make him an average turian grunt. Their positions were uncomfortably inverted: she had the name but not necessarily the capabilities, he had the capabilities but not the name.

She took a long sip of her soft drink, squelching the thoughts. She did not like where they threatened to take her.

It was easier to fixate on something else, something obvious...

...like how tired her feet were. The day was not physically demanding, compared to business as usual. She was emotionally tired, mentally tired. And she had no illusions: as soon as the press could, they would be _all over her_, and she would have to remember not to shoot them for invading her personal space. She would not be able to weasel out of their clutches two days in a row.

'But you made the cut, Shepard!' some well-meaning individual would protest.

Yes, she made the cut, but it was still all political. She was not a real Spectre. She was convenience. Expendable. The only person higher up than she was that she trusted to remember she was human, that she was not some titan, some epitome of humanity, was Capt. Anderson.

But even he had his fallacies. She was doing now what he could not all those years ago. His confidence in her seemed to imply a certain…a certain rose tinting of things. That she was stronger, sterner, tougher stuff than most other humans.

Maybe she was, but her feet still ached, and she a headache that refused to _be _a real headache. It just stalked around the periphery, twinging every so often as though testing the waters.

Shepard got to her feet, draining her soft drink, crumpling the plastic and lobbing it at the nearest receptacle. Nothing but trash can. What was the cutoff for being a professional athlete? What separated the great from the mediocre?

It was a good question, and she could not answer that. She was…just a soldier. A soldier who dual-specialized in combat tactics and technological support. There had to be a hundred other people who could have made the cut…so why her?

It was not ingratitude, just a perplexed and objective question. It was also a question she could not answer. She could name a half dozen people suited to this sort of job. People whose personal history would never draw their logic and reasoning abilities into question.

Why her? Everyone with an ounce of political pretension knew that as soon as things got hot, when the time came to throw someone under the bus, she would be the first to go.

She could hear it now. She was borrowing trouble. Her competency was not in question.

Yet.

One of these days she was going to fail to make the cutoff, any cutoff, and she was not sure who would be the more upset by it. The Council expected someone who got the job done. The Alliance expected all the pros of humanity personified (they never said it out loud, but Shepard was smart enough to read between the lines). She expected nothing short of excellence from herself.

Sounded like they were not the only ones setting her up for a fall.

It was late. She was tired. Those were the only reasons she felt so morbidly melancholy, the only reason she was worrying about benchmarks and cutoffs. She could not ruin everything in less than twenty-four hours, outside a combat zone, without intent and elbow grease.

The Citadel hardly classified as a combat zone.

With a sigh, she shuffled towards her sleeper pod. It was too late to get a good night's sleep, but she had to try. Tomorrow was going to be killer. She fully expected herself, and her crewmates, to be ambushed by the press.

She managed to dodge the media, but investigations started tomorrow and those would require being out where the public could see her. She could only hope that being seen would not interfere with what she had to do, since doubtless many entities with claims on her would disapprove of any attempt to duck out of being a public figure.

She _needed_ all the sleep she could get, so she did not shoot someone's camera drone out of reflex. It had always worried her that one of these days she would do something stupid on camera. Or _to_ a camera.

The sleeper pod hissed as it unsealed. She undid her boots before climbing into the pod.

The sound of weary feet brought another individual—not Alenko or Williams—to the row of sleeper pods. It looked like someone else had missed the cutoff for a good night's sleep, too.


	42. Multitasking

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard climbed into her sleeper pod physically and mentally exhausted, jittery from caffeine consumption but grateful to be isolated. The physical tiredness she could deal with, but the mental exhaustion was not something she was used to. Marine life was hard. N-operative life was harder, given the kinds of missions they usually ended up running.

Spectre life was harder than both because of the media if not the actual mission.

Her mind was so tired she could not get it to shut down. The promise of more of the same tomorrow made her want to…what? She was not sure what she could do, or should do, and it left her feeling like a trapped rat.

There was the rub: she _was_ a trapped lab rat. She was someone's guinea pig, waiting to be pronounced experiment successful, or waiting for euthanasia. She was a Spectre, the first human Spectre, an Alliance marine, an N7, human…

And no one in any of those groups wanted to share. It was like being in a taffy pull…as the taffy. The Council insisted that she was under her own jurisdiction now. Spectres answered to the Council only, and even then, the Council gave the impression of not wanting to know the details of what their Spectres were doing. Possibly this was why Spectres were laws unto themselves: it gave the Council an excuse to stay out of touchy affairs where a Spectre 'overstepped his/her bounds'. There were no bounds to overstep, or rather, very few.

Except for her. She was under close scrutiny, knowing they were looking for a reason to get rid of her. She would have to keep a repertoire of fast talking available to keep them from throwing her under the CRT car.

The Alliance didn't want to share. She had been good for recruiting purposes in the past, she was even better at what she did. The Alliance was her entire life, up until now. They had given her purpose, mission after mission, letting her organize her life like one giant checklist. She always knew where she stood, between completing her missions and fitreps*.

Yet, although they had flagged her for Spectre candidacy, they did not want to share her either. They wanted to keep hooks in her, they didn't want her forgetting where she came from, forgetting her Oath of Service. They wanted her on call, in case they needed or wanted anything in that gray area done. She did not need to be particularly politically astute.

She knew the Alliance, and they knew the value of anything belonging to them. She was not sure she could count on Adm. Hackett, who ran the Fifth Fleet. She had a feeling she was right in thinking that if things ever got dicey, the Admiral was not the person to turn to. Then again, he was upper brass, having little to do with her for the most part.

At least Anderson was in her corner. He believed her, believed that the Reapers existed, that they were coming, and that Saren was the instigator for that coming, whatever his personal grudges were. It was good to know she had some kind of backing in all this. Anderson would not go anywhere, just because she started sounding a little crazy. She already sounded a little crazy, with visions from the beacon being brought out into the open.

And Udina had pointed out something else she had not thought about—evidently the man was not completely useless. Humanity supported her as a figurehead, proof that the galactic community was beginning to accept them, or using her as proof that humanity could get the job done, if people would only give them the chance.

She was expected to advance human interests, and she knew it. She was now the benchmark by which humanity would be gauged: if she succeeded she was doing her job if she failed...

She was a political pawn and she could do nothing about it. It left her feeling helpless in a way she had not felt helpless before, and she did not like it.

Who would?

She shifted in her pod. The amount of effort and skill it would take to balance these elements (and leave more for those that would inevitably come up later) staggered her exhausted mind. It was too much for one person, but apparently there was only one person who could do it.

And that one person had grievous doubts about whether or not such faith was misplaced. She was one person, and no one wanted to hear she was human, if it meant she was fallible and finite.

She did _not_ have the Spectre benefit of anonymity.

She _had_ the Alliance making sure she had a copy of the Systems Alliance Code of Military Justice both in her messages account, on her nightstand, probably in the glove box of the Mako, a copy with her executive officer in case she left hers somewhere, one in the bathroom…

…maybe that was over-exaggerating, but it was made quite clear other that she was expected to adhere to it, no matter what. Despite Anderson's assertions, she was still part of the Alliance. She did not mind following their rules—she only resented people making sure she knew she had to.

Shepard closed her eyes, wondering _what_ she had done in her life to deserve this. It looked like an honor at first, but in reality, it seemed more like a punishment.

The only _good_ thing about the situation was that Saren _did_ need to be stopped, and she had a personal interest in the matter. It was his attack (coupled with her own failings) that got one of her men killed, nearly got another one's headjack blown, and nearly vaporized the colony.

No, hunting Saren was the only good thing in this whole multitasking political venture. She could stand being the taffy in a taffy pull for as long as it took to bring the scaly little weasel down.

-J-

CRT car: Citadel Rapid Transit

Fitreps: Fitness reports


	43. Food For Thought

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus was still trying to figure out how to make his case when Commander Sheppard emerged from another meeting at the embassy, looking grim. "Is everything all right, Commander?"

"Everything's _political_." Shepard stalked towards the exit.

"I hear that." Garrus' mind worked at double-time, trying to coalesce his arguments into something that sounded logical, and not like an untrained rookie wanting to tag along.

"Garrus, why are you all fidgety?" Shepard flopped onto an unoccupied bench.

"Could ask you the same thing. Come to think of it, I did."

"And I answered you. Politics. Your turn."

Now the moment had come, Garrus wasn't sure how to answer. So he did what he was best known for doing: jumping in heedless of the consequences. "I want to go with you. After Saren."

Shepard expected as much. Truthfully, she was grateful for a distraction from brooding over the situation with Capt. Anderson. Forced retirement sucked; being the cause of it sucked more. "Garrus, I don't want to steal you from C-Sec."

Garrus was impulsive. Look in a dictionary, and there would be his scowling face. She needed to know this was more than just an impulsive thing.

"That's why I quit, Commander." He was willing to accept the consequences…so long as Shepard took him on.

"You _quit_?"

Garrus shrugged, surprised at her reaction, but relieved her first word wasn't 'no'. "I knew working with a Spectre would be better than life at C-Sec."

Shepard digested this for a moment before getting to her feet. Thank goodness the Alliance was studded with this kind of headstrong impetuosity: otherwise she might have felt all at sea. "This is a walking talk."

If she hadn't expected him to volunteer, she'd be upset. Burning his bridges on a _might_…

It was a dangerous inclination. They'd need to work _that_ out of him, somehow. "Have you worked with a Spectre before?"

"Well…no," Garrus admitted, striding along at the Commander's shoulder. "But I know what they're like." When Shepard arched her eyebrows, he continued, "Spectres make their own rules. You're free to handle things your way. At C-Sec, they _bury_ you in rules and regs. The bureaucrats are always on your back." Garrus absently crossed his arms, hunching slightly.

Not unlike a sullen teenager. Shepard wondered how old Garrus really was. He was not 'a kid', but…

"The rules are usually there for a reason. And there're bureaucrats anywhere you go." She was dealing with one right now; Udina made her want to shoot things.

"Maybe." Since Shepard was not making this a fight, he was not sure what to say or do.

She wasn't giving anything away, either. He'd learned to read human expressions fairly well, but Shepard was tough.

"But most of the time, I feel like the rules are there to stop me from doing my job. If I'm trying to take down a suspect, it shouldn't matter _how_ I do it, so long as I do it."

Shepard nodded—in understanding of Garrus' thought process, not in approval. Reckless, heedless, but not because he was callus. He didn't think ahead, wasn't used to weighing consequences until he could actually _see_ them. A sign of immaturity. Work on that too and he had the potential to be a real asset to C-Sec, or anyone else.

His aim proved the skills were already there.

"But with C-Sec it's all rules and protocol. They want it done their way, end of story. It's why I left," he finished flatly. Now he had severed ties, he inwardly dreaded the impending argument with his father. He half-hoped he'd be off the Citadel, so they didn't fight face-to-face.

Literally.

"Wait, you _left_ because you didn't like the way they did things?" Shepard stopped walking. Until now she thought his reasons were better, a desire to do something important, finish something he helped start—he _had_ been the lead investigator into Saren's activities.

...this, though, this sort of reason was a liability.

"There's more to it than that," Garrus responded quickly, holding up his hands. His usual instinct to argue back did not flare, but his need to justify himself did, perhaps because Shepard didn't look angry so much as disappointed.

Maybe he should have spoken more carefully.

"It didn't start out so bad. But as you rise in ranks you get saddled with more and more red tape…" he trailed off as Shepard crossed her arms, scrutinizing him in a way that made him extremely nervous. "C-Sec's handling of Saren was typical," he finally announced. "I couldn't take it anymore. I hate leaving…but…" He shook his head.

"I hope you made the right choice, Garrus. I'd hate for you to regret it later."

Garrus' eyes, drifting down towards Shepard's boots, rose again to find her still frowning, though still not angrily. "That's…sort of why I teamed up—wanted to team up—with you, Commander. It's a chance to get off the Citadel for awhile. See how things are done outside C-Sec. And without headquarters looking over my shoulder, maybe I can get my job done for once."

Shepard planted her feet as if bracing for a fight. "If getting the job done means endangering innocent lives, then no." Garrus opened his mouth, but Shepard held up a hand. "We do the job _right_, not _fast_."

If Garrus could have blushed, he would have. Something about the gaze she pinned him with made him want to shrivel up. When she put it like _that_, it made him sound so, so…

He didn't like it.

"I'll take you along, but I need to know I can count on you to keep your talon off the trigger when things look tense."

Garrus' metaphorical innards dropped out of position, to land in a heap on the floor. "You…I can come?"

"Yes. If you're sure that's what you want to do."

"It is," Garrus answered eagerly. "I said it before, and I'll stand by it now: this is your show, Shepard. I'm right behind you."


	44. Breakaway

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus Vakarian, formerly of C-Sec—he loved the sound of 'formerly of C-Sec'!—knew where Spectres went to get their gear. Shepard did not quite believe him about Spectres not _paying_ for their equipment if they got it through the C-Sec requisitions officer, mostly because Spectre-grade equipment was prototypical, iffy-if-you-wore-a-strange-size. If it assuaged her doubts, she _would _have to sign for it.

Nothing left requisitions without a signature, not even for Spectres. Especially not for Spectres. If something blew up and killed one, the Council liked to know. So did other Spectres, so they knew what gear to avoid.

Still, Shepard did not believe credits weren't changing hands somewhere, and Garrus gave up trying to convince her otherwise. Requisitions was manned by a fellow turian and a casual acquaintance, Livion: he could explain it.

"Good afternoon. Let me look you up," the turian rumbled, holding up a retinal scanner, as soon as it became obvious the human and Garrus were here for him.

Shepard forced herself not to blink, long practice making her effort successful. "Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance. First time on the Citadel, is that about right?" Livion looked up from his screen.

"Yes…" Shepard shifted uncomfortably.

The turian chuckled. "We have to make sure all our buyers are authorized, Commander. This _is_ high-quality firepower. Garrus," Livion nodded then, joking, aimed his scanner at Garrus. Livion's face fell, mandibles almost slack with surprise as the screen flashed red.

"You _quit_? I mean, you actually _did _it?" Garrus was always threatening to quit, or pretending to, before showing up later to reclaim his badge and get back to work. Only respect of Vakarian Sr. kept the phrase 'pulling a Vakarian' out of use.

"Yeah," Garrus shifted, but gave no other sign of discomfort. "Finally made the break." A clean break, he hoped, though the uncertainty in the pit of his stomach made him wonder. He hated leaving, but that was ridiculous…wasn't it?

Shepard glanced at Garrus. 'Finally'?

"Your dad's going to be pissed. If I were you, I'd get off the Citadel. Fast." Livion chuckled as he said it. This was going to put a real dent in Antilles Vakarian's day, when he inevitably found out. Requisitions officers were usually the source for hot gossip. Vakarian Jr. and Vakarian Sr. tended to provide plenty of that—especially if Executor Pallin got dragged in.

"I expect he _will_," Garrus shook his head. "But it's over, it's done." The more he said it, the better he felt about it. He _did _hate leaving, maybe he'd find a way to do things that did not make him feel like he wanted to break anything and everything within reach.

Of course, Shepard seemed fairly by-the-book as well...but from what he could tell she managed to get things done. He knew she had an eye on him—and continue to keep one on him—but she needn't bother. Any good turian (and even a not-so-good one, as Garrus admittedly was) knew his place, and would follow the commanding officer's lead.

But thank goodness the krogan had finally vanished.

"Well, if that's what you've decided…" Garrus nodded. "All right then." Livion made a mental note to remember Garrus did not have C-Sec clearance anymore. Just in case. "What can I do for you, Commander?"

"Looking into supplies." Shepard did not betray her own nerves. Part of her expected her Spectre clearances to come into question. Or worse, not be in the computer at all. The Alliance had never dropped her from the books, even from tidal waves of digital paperwork, but the Citadel was not the Alliance: she might 'slip through the cracks', which would slow her investigation, buying Saren time…

"Of course, let me just…whoa…" Livion looked up, blinking owlishly. Suddenly Garrus quitting to herd this human around made sense. He was not herding the human; the human was herding him. "Garrus, your dad's going to be _really_ pissed…" Livion shook his head again. Welcome to a whole new chapter in the Vakarian Saga. "This is telling me to offer you the select stock…Spectre." So, it was true. He'd heard they were in, but little more except that the new Spectre was…well, not quite so short and not quite so…

Shepard correctly interpreted Livion's expression. "Unexpected, huh?"

"I had heard, but I, ah…didn't realize it was you." He locked out his computer. "Well, you're here, you're qualified, and you're certainly not going to want the usual fare. This way." Livion motioned Shepard to come around the desk.

"Garrus is with me," Shepard responded evenly, aware of Garrus straightening up and crossing his arms over his chest. She liked Garrus, there was something…not quite 'endearing' about him, but something familiar, even if he had scales instead of eyebrows. Maybe it was his impetuous leap-before-looking attitude.

Not a safe attitude to have, but he could be trained out of that.

"All right…of course, Spectre." Shepard and Garrus followed the turian into the back.

Large metal shelves, filled with neatly stacked black cases, each stenciled with a manufacturer's name and general contents reached from floor to ceiling, neatly organized. Pistols, body armor, bio-amps, omni-tool…Shepard's head started spinning.

"This is our Spectres-only stock, over here. But if you see something else…"

She might be able to fit into armor meant for an asari, and there _might_ be some odd human sizes floating around; humanity had hoped for a Spectre for so long. Human corporations would be eager to make sure any human who managed to get in had something from _their_ corporation.

Damn, but humans moved fast.

"Who's your dad?" Shepard hissed. Part of her half expected a very angry turian father to come storming into the room, demanding to know what she was doing with (or to) his son, and to give Garrus back to C-Sec _right now_. Well, at least she was still smiling.

"Antilles Vakarian—C-Sec investigator," Garrus answered.

"Like father, like son, huh?" It explained a lot.

"Tch." She was more right than she knew.


	45. Childhood

A note on format: since this is a two POV chapter, there are more line breaks than usual. Let me know if this helps with clarity.

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was with some bewilderment that Tali followed Williams and Alenko to wherever Shepard was. They ended up at C-Sec, to find Garrus waiting for them. The time for Shepard and her crew to pull out was drawing nearer, and it left Tali feeling unmoored, adrift.

Part of it was fear, the quarian knew that, even if she did not want to accept it.

Shepard was waiting in the requisitions officer's office. "I need a word with Tali. Garrus, would you get things started, please?" Apparently Shepard did not want to have this talk in front of the others.

Alenko cast Shepard a curious glance, which she ignored.

Williams looked from Garrus, to the other turian by the door, to Shepard. The Commander ignored this as well, merely nodding for them to 'get in there'.

"You've been kind of quiet the past couple days," Shepard noted, once the humans and turians were in the other room. When Shepard was on the _Normandy_, she had made it a point to check on Tali every so often.

Williams' barely audible 'holy shit!' assured Tali that this conversation would remain private. Even without knowing Williams well, Tali could imagine the Chief drooling over some piece of serious firepower.

"Yes, just thinking." Tali looked away from Shepard, unsure of how to make the request, afraid to sound too forward, or to assume too much.

"About what?"

Tali swallowed, examining Shepard's benign expression closely. "You'll be leaving to chase Saren soon, won't you?"

-J-

"That's the plan." Shepard nodded. She had no intention of letting Tali breech the subject. The quarian was obviously afraid to make the obvious request, at risk of rudeness. Shepard had already hashed this out with herself. Tali was not an adult, but Shepard could not put the label 'child' on her. It simply did not fit.

However, it was Tali's age that concerned Shepard most. Kids—that was a better word than child—had no place in this venture. And yet, despite the fact that Tali was 'a kid', Shepard did not like leaving the quarian alone in the universe. It was not all altruism, either. She could not be certain that Saren's men would not make another attempt on the quarian's life. Tali was already identified with Shepard's crew, which made her a target, the same as anyone else.

"Do you want to come?" If she did not offer, Shepard would feel like a hypocrite. After all, _she_ had lied about her age, and enlisted at seventeen. She could not fairly be legalistic in this instance, however different the two circumstances were.

-J-

Tali almost did not register what Shepard actually said. "I…do I what?" Her heart leapt into her throat. To go into deep space, on that beautiful ship, on an intergalactic turian-hunt…? To be _invited_ to go? It was more than she could have hoped! Never mind that she could make herself _very _useful, when dealing with the geth.

She had feared that Shepard would let age be a factor. Shepard gave the impression of someone who took people with her if she deemed them competent to make a choice as to whether they wanted to put their lives on the line...but only if they were considered adults by their species' standard. Quarians on Pilgrimage were a gray area.

"Do you want to come with us? I'm giving you the option, but I'll understand if you don't want to. You have your Pilgrimage…"

"Our Pilgrimages are about giving of ourselves to ensure the continuation of the Migrant Fleet! Even if Saren turns out to be the only threat, he's still working with the geth! If I turn my back on this, what does that say about me?" Tali cried.

-J-

It was a very grown-upish sentiment, and Shepard could appreciate it. "I understand that. But it's going to be dangerous." She wanted Tali to have all the facts in their unvarnished fullness. As much as Shepard did not like to countenance it, there was the possibility for people to get hurt or killed. She would do her best to keep either of those things from happening, but she was only human.

Kids should not have to see the things adults did, and she wanted to make sure there were no illusions to be shattered later. Overprotective? Perhaps. But once Tali made her choice, Shepard had to not accept it, and support it. It was the least she could do.

And there was the fact that Tali's tech mine, even once it had been used, was impressive, a potent little gadget.

"_Anywhere_ in the galaxy is dangerous, Commander. I nearly got killed on the _Citadel, _of all places."

Shepard nodded in rueful agreement. So much for worrying over shattered illusions. It made it seem as though the universe was rapidly running out of innocents who knew no better. "You're right. Let's get you geared up." Shepard waved Tali to precede her into the room.

-J-

"Geared up?" Tali frowned, unseen, caught flat-footed by Shepard's abrupt switch from trying not to encourage or discourage a hard choice, to a soldier prepping another soldier for action.

"If you're part of my team, I want you to have decent equipment. I saw you in that alleyway, I know what you can do. So it's important to keep you from getting shot again. It hurts." Shepard gave a wry laugh.

It certainly _did_ hurt.

"Yes…have you been shot before?" Tali blinked in surprise. She somehow could not imagine Shepard succumbing to something so mundane as getting shot.

Shepard poked herself indicatively in the side with a finger. "Yeah. While I was still a Lieutenant. Lucky shot, but most of them are." Shepard shrugged ruefully at the memory. "It happens. Left a very nifty scar."

Tali proceeded Shepard into the back room, apprehension, excitement, and pride balling up near her diaphragm. For the first time, she truly felt like an adult, having made an adult's decision, for an adult's reasons.

Childhood was finally on its way out.


	46. Pecking Order

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard had no sooner turned to usher Tali into C-Sec requisitions' back room than a low voice stopped her. "Spectre Shepard." Shepard's jaw dropped as Wrex lumbered in, grinning his flat-toothed leer. "There you are. I've been looking all over for you."

"Well, you found me," Shepard crossed her arms. The krogan made her nerves jangle. She knew he would shoot Fist at the club, and knew he would have done it with or without her help. Still… "Business slowing down?" It couldn't be anything good.

"I thought you could use a little more firepower, that's what." Wrex's eyes followed Tali until he could no longer see her. "You're running a nursery, Shepard. What's with that?"

He must have caught sight of Garrus as well.

"They're volunteers. And by human standards, only Tali is a kid." Shepard responded evenly, though she was ready to lump Garrus into the category of 'kid', regardless of chronological age.

"Which is why you need _me_. I'm _volunteering _too." His tone was teasing, yet whatever his personal reasons for 'volunteering', this one was probably the only one she would get.

"You are, are you? Whatare you volunteering_ for, _exactly?" Pardon her dubiousness, but she had never heard of a krogan volunteering for _anything_. Whatever she thought about krogan on the whole, Wrex gave the impression as someone who always had a reason when he did a thing.

Suspicion was good, particularly when a krogan volunteered to do something, and it plainly amused Wrex. "Saving the universe. There's going to be a lot of shooting. You're going to need all the help you can get. And human biotics burn out fast." He glanced around, looking for Alenko.

It was certainly true that she could use all the help she could get, though she contested the comment about humans burning out. Of course, she did not expect a biotic krogan to take a violent liking to a biotic human. In fact, she expected this kind of friction on Wrex's side. Still, having the krogan around would be…unsettling. And she was sure he would want to pick fights with the crew, or hit them for reactions. "You do realize this is an Alliance-backed mission?"

"So I can't beat up your marines. I get it there'll be plenty of other people in the way and underfoot." Wrex shrugged. "I told you before, Shepard. We're both warriors. You're hunting Saren. I'm offering to help. It's that simple. Call it insurance: otherwise you might find yourself on the business end of this baby." He patted his shotgun. "We wouldn't want that, now, would we?" His red eyes bored into Shepard's.

"Sounds like insurance all right. Great sense of self-preservation you've got there." Shepard doubted things were as simple as Wrex made them sound. "You'll be part of _my_ team." Best to get that worked out here and now. If he could not handle that, she would forego the obvious benefits of having a centuries-old krogan biotic with a shotgun on the team. She did not have the impression Wrex was the double-crossing kind; he was an unstable element, and not she was sure wanted to deal with.

-J-

Wrex did not need to be smarter than the average krogan to understand what Shepard meant: if she pulled on his leash, he'd better come to heel. He was free to bitch and complain all he liked, so long as he didn't pull any stunts, like shooting Fist. Wrex wondered if he could read a threat Shepard's words, that if he didn't play by her rules while he was on her ship or her team, she'd shoot him herself. He decided he dared. If it looked like he was going to get her team hurt or killed, she _would_ shoot him herself.

He respected that. It was always important to know how to kill your teammates, superiors and subordinates. It helped keep _you _alive.Of course, her underlings probably didn't realize this, and it was with some sadistic amusement that he planned to present the question 'who would win?'. He had the feeling her tagalong biotic was _highly_ susceptible to having his feathers ruffled., Humans were easy to rile, and the funniest species to watch when they _got_ riled. "I don't know if I like that arrangement, Shepard."

-J-

"Then stay here." Was he really worth the trouble he could cause?

Wrex laughed, fingering his shotgun. Good game face she had there. "Well, if they leave well enough alone, there won't be any need to start something."

"I certainly hope so, Wrex. Get in there. We're gearing up."

"Ooh…you're going to share your toys?" Wrex lumbered up to her, but Shepard stood her ground. It was one reason Wrex could respect her. "You sure that's smart?"

"Wrex. Don't bullshit me. Get in there, or get lost."

Wrex thumped Shepard once over the back, a blow she took stoically, as he strode into the storage room.

-J-

Silence fell as Wrex rolled in like a bank of malevolent storm clouds, Shepard following. "Now that everyone's here…where do I sign?" Shepard inquired tiredly.

She watched Garrus seem to groan inwardly: _the krogan_?

Williams, good soldier that she was, tensed but did not ask questions.

Alenko shook his head, evidently assuming there was no way Shepard was shelling out credits to hire Wrex, before resuming his inspection of a case's contents.

Tali sighed, wandering off among the shelves. It did not take a genius to see that the krogan unnerved her.

Shepard did not let out the expressive sigh pent up in her lungs. What a day. What a _crew_.

"You…" Livion stopped, uncertainly.

"I'm a Spectre. And I'm in a mood to take all the help I can get." She _could_ work this motley group from a political angle, but was not ready to apply that kind of brainpower. She also had the feeling, whatever else he may be, whatever dangers he posed, Wrex was being straight with her. "So, what treasures have we found so far?"


	47. Shoes

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"With all due respect, Captain," Shepard announced, watching Anderson clearing out the last of his personal effects, those in his desk, "I don't like this. At all." She did not, and could not find another way to say it. It was just…wrong. All wrong.

"With all due respect, _Spectre_, you don't have to." Anderson dropped a few datapads into the box before giving Shepard his full attention. She stood against the door, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted in the same way it had twisted just after the Skyllian Blitz, when he told her to '_smile while they feed you to those media sharks_'. It was a grim look, a subtle look, yet unusually expressive.

"Sir, this is your crew and your boat! Udina's not even Alliance, he can't _do_ this!" Shepard protested. It was as though she was stealing the ship from him. She knew that, by Alliance definitions, she was ready for command of her own vessel, but it was not a responsibility she wanted. Especially not like this.

Anderson shook his head slowly, continuing to pack his things with more neutrality than he actually felt. It meant a lot to have Shepard advocating on his behalf, even if she was beating her head against a brick wall. She was a good soldier, and when she knew her place she knew it. In this case, she did not, and therefore would not accept the situation until she had no other alternative.

And she was good at finding alternatives.

It was flattering, that kind of loyalty, but for a woman in her position it was not going to help her any. Nor was his presence; his personal grudge with Saren would get in the way, sooner or later. Shepard would know a thing or two about personal grudges getting in her way.

"Shepard," it was like pounding something into a fresh jarhead's head: you had to say it over and over. "I don't like leaving either, but it's necessary. Just like it's necessary for you to step up to the plate."

"I can't fill your shoes, sir."

"I'm not asking you to—I'm asking you to find a pair to your own liking. You're a Spectre, Shepard, and you'd lose face were the Alliance to put you in a position where you were still taking orders."

"What about an Alliance liaison officer…? I'm out side the chain of command and the boat's still—"

Anderson laughed outright at this. "Shepard, you're acting like an FNG corporal. Dig your spine out of whatever box you stowed it in and then come back and talk to me."

"I'm serious, Sir."

"So'm I." Enough was enough. He did not doubt her sincerity, but enough really was enough. She had booted enough people so they excelled in their fields, it was her turn for the boot towards excellence. Even if Udina disagreed, Shepard was geared towards excellence. It was her magnetic north, whether she liked it or not.

Shepard fell silent, shifting from foot to foot. She had been taking orders most of her life, and for most of her career had been giving them—but always with someone else a rank ahead of her plotting the course.

"Shepard, the _Normandy _is yours, and no amount of grousing or advocating is going to change that. If you need it:, Commander Shepard, I'm giving you a lawful order. Do what you've got to do. There, are you happy?"

Shepard cracked a grin. "No, but thanks anyway." Well, there it was.

"Something else for you to keep in mind," he did not want to discourage her, but he did not want her to be blindsided by this detail either, "You know they'll be waiting for you to fail. You know they'll throw you under the CRT vehicle if you let them." Shepard nodded. "You're a Spectre, but I don't recommend leaning too heavily on Council support of that role."

"I'm half a Spectre, Sir. I'll deal with it." It was true, and she knew it, though she appreciated the warning.

"I have the utmost faith in you." Anderson piled the last of his things into the box. "The _Normandy_ is your now, Commander. Take care of her."

Shepard nodded obediently.

"Come on, you can escort this old man off your ship." He picked up his box, and nodded for Shepard to precede him.

-J-

She was grateful the crew was still mostly scattered over the Citadel. It felt like a walk to the executioner's block for Shepard, a cold feeling settling in her stomach that manifested as a crease between her eyebrows. Her nerves jangled, it was all she could do to pray they would settle before she had to put her game face on.

Deep down she knew they would, she had a mission objective, and that was all she needed. Still…whatever else Anderson said, she _did _have a big pair of shoes to fill. The crew expected certain things, and she knew better than to try and imitate Anderson.

Imitating the former CO never worked, she had seen it in practice several times (usually with some butterbar imitating _his_ higher up in hopes of a promotion). Imitation eventually eroded, giving the impression the individual was inept because plans made were not compatible with capabilities. This in turn eroded the crew's confidence that they could trust their new higher-up.

Trust was essential on any venture. She needed her crew to trust her if they were going to catch Saren before he did anything catastrophic. She already suspected she had an uphill battle there. Having 'bad dreams' from the beacon was enough to rattle people. Her personal history always seemed to come up, sooner or later, the worry she might finally be losing it.

Which was ridiculous. If she was going to have a meltdown, she would have done it already. She hated being treated like a ticking bomb, but what could she do? Nothing but excel…

And right now, that meant filling Anderson's shoes.


	48. Wrong Turn

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Antilles Vakarian did not know whether to shut himself up in his office and work through the ream of paperwork on his desk with the single-mindedness of residual frustration, hash this new development out over drinks with an old friend, or just throw his head back and demand of the Citadel's 'sky' _'whhyyyyy_!'.

The last one appealed to him, but it was also undignified. Vakarian took pains to remain dignified at all times. A sharp contrast to that _other _C-Sec officer he could name last, first, and middle…

…though even he had to admit that dignity eroded when he and said other officer had face-to-face differences of opinion.

-J-

Executor Pallin looked up from his work as Vakarian entered the office after knocking. "You've heard." Pallin reached into his desk as the door closed. After hours Pallin did not mind relaxing standards a bit—which meant if there was ever a time for a stiff drink, now would be it.

For Vakarian's sake. He would have hated to see the other turian seconds after getting the news about Garrus. By now, though, he should have calmed down some.

It would take longer, usually, but Garrus was not there to shout back. The row C-Sec expected (and in some circles anticipated) was not forthcoming.

"Yes." Vakarian threw himself into a chair, his mandibles flailing with his agitation. "How did this happen, Venari?" Vakarian exploded, before Pallin could finish pouring his drink.

-J-

"Easy. Boy meets Spectre. Boy admires Spectre. Boy goes off with Spectre." Pallin resisted the urge to point out that there were very few differences between Antilles and Garrus. It was why, he felt, they argued the way they did. "Take it easy, Antilles, you'll blow a gasket at this rate." He shoved the pale blue liquor across his desk.

Vakarian tipped it back, mindlessly, and choked on it.

"You _know_ how wound up Garrus gets."

"Who put him on the Sar—" When Pallin cocked his head, Vakarian checked himself. "Why?"

"Because he was the best turian for the job…I _thought_. I have to admit. I didn't think he'd really quit over this. He was certainly hot about turning up no evidence to support his hunch, but that's…" Pallin poured Vakarian another drink. Good thing it was not particularly strong.

-J-

"Classically Garrus," Vakarian growled with a heavy sigh. Why, _why _couldn't the boy be sensible? He had so much potential, but he _wasted_ it, or burned it off by jumping into things headfirst with _no_ concept of what was going on. Too brash. Too reckless.

Vakarian really had no idea where the boy learned it from. And now, he was tagging along after a Spectre. "So tell me the worst. About this Spectre, I mean." He pressed the cool glass against his brow. Spectres were bad enough in all conscience, but with a human—whose very nature of hotheaded action would appeal to Garrus—was worse.

"The self-destructive kind." Pallin shook his head. "I've met her, this Shepard. This is just a stunt to keep the humans happy."

Vakarian slumped in his chair. "There wasn't any way to stop him?" He could not stop the half-hearted question, though he knew he did not need to ask it.

-J-

"If there was, don't you think I would have?" But Pallin was tired as Vakarian. He looked into the blue liquor as though hoping for inspiration. He would have tried to keep Garrus with C-Sec for Antilles' sake, yes, but mostly because Garrus, for all his flaws, was a good operative. He'd only get better as he learned to settle down, once age whittled off some of that over-enthusiasm…

…but now he was careening around the galaxy with a Spectre who would only encourage those undesirable, life-shortening traits. Pallin hated Spectres. The more of them there were, the further down the wrong side of the road the galaxy went.

For a long time, the two turians sat in the painfully white, neat office, sipping their drinks as they ruminated, occasionally snorting or rolling eyes. Silence hung heavy, unbroken by further words, until it almost seemed as though the two old friends had fallen asleep.

-J-

Vakarian got up and walked over to the window, wondering vaguely what he had done during his life to end up with such a rebellious son. Surely it was a punishment for _something_, since the boy had not by now picked up that if you did things fast and loose with the law, you inevitably ended up no better than the criminals you were tearing after. That as irritating as the red tape was—even he would admit there were days where he bridled at the amount of red tape protecting the criminal element—it was there for a reason, and a good one.

And Vakarian held very little hope that Garrus would come to realize this. Spectres had no use for rules, regulations, or SOPs. "Venari…that boy's going to get himself killed." He was. Vakarian knew he was not the most sentimental, coddling-type parent out there, but whatever anyone might think, he did love his boy, whatever the boy might say to that.

-J-

Pallin knew this, being more in Vakarian's confidences than Garrus apparently was. Having no children himself, Pallin refrained from sticking his nose into the Vakarian family business, as much as possible. Still, his sympathies lay more with Vakarian senior than with Garrus.

Personally, he thought Garrus must have missed the key points from several childhood disciplining actions. "The boy's taking a wrong turn, no mistake."

And C-Sec would be the poorer for it—but Pallin was nothing if not practical. Garrus was good, but in some ways, it would be better not to have to deal with him when he got impatient. Which happened often.

-J-

Vakarian waved his mandibles in irritation as he glared out the window, leaning heavily on the sill. Sliding his empty cup away from him he shook his head slowly, seething. "That boy's been on a wrong turn since he _enlisted_."


	49. Caffeine

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Navigator Pressly eyed the CIC, mug of sugared coffee in one hand. The bridge was, mercifully, still a 100% human zone. Shepard's growing…menagerie… of aliens tended to stay on the lower levels. He wished she would confine them to the crew deck and be done with it.

Sedate the krogan.

And keep eyes on the turian twenty hours a day. A _turian_. On a prototype human warship. The galaxy was crumbling.

He took a sip of his coffee. Caffeine. The best way to start and end a day, and today looked like a caffeine-rich kind of day.

"Officer on deck!"

Shepard was regular as clockwork when it came to morning routine. If the woman's life did not revolve around adaptability, she would be a well-oiled machine of an officer. She was the type to have every T crossed, every I dotted, who arrived the same time every morning, and went off shift the same time every night, always on call. Just the sort of officer who did well in a training environment, beating the brains out of the Alliance's future jarheads, prepping them for new input.

"As you were," Shepard stepped up to the galaxy map, checking their coordinates, her blue _El Alamein_ mug in one hand. "Morning Pressly."

"Morning, Ma'am." Pressly snapped to.

Shepard stepped down from the map and returned his salute crisply. "How're we doing today?" It was like this every morning, the routine end shortly. Routine was the second-best thing with which to start the morning; it was about the only routine a marine like Shepard got.

"Still queuing for use of the Citadel Relay, ma'am. We've given them your clearance, they're waiting for you to authenticate."

"Joker?" Shepard cued her radio. "Put me through to the routing hub."

"_Aye-aye, ma'am. And a good morning to you too." _

Shepard took a sip of her coffee, grimacing as she did so.

Pressly watched as she glanced this way and that, taking in the feel of the atmosphere in the room.

"This is Commander Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, requesting routing through the Citadel Relay. Destination the Arcturus Relay…Forward that to my helmsman, thank you. Shepard out." Shepard disconnected the uplink. "So what do you think, Pressly?" Shepard's air of rigid discipline and formality vanished like smoke as she heaved a sigh into her coffee.

"It's good coffee, ma'am." He respected Shepard enough to watch how much he said, with regards to his dubious views of her pet aliens.

Shepard shrugged. "You look like you've got something on your mind." Polite, but perceptive.

For a moment Pressly teetered on saying nothing at all, but finally he nodded.

Shepard beckoned him to follow her. She did not walk them into the comm room, merely behind the wall blocking the comm. room from the CIC's view. "What's up, Pressly?"

"I'm concerned about the aliens, ma'am." There, it was out.

"Noted. What's your concern?" Absolutely unruffled.

Was there enough coffee in the universe? She was obviously listening, truly listening. It was not the 'noted' of someone writing off a concern. She was keeping her fingers on the pulse of the ship, anything deviating from a steady beat was worth inquiring about. He also had the feeling that if he had indicated no issues, she would not have pressed him.

"Commander, I'm _not_ questioning your judgment." Nor was he questioning her service record, or her dedication to the mission and the Alliance.

"Also noted," Shepard responded gravely when Pressly paused.

"I'm not comfortable with letting the aliens have full run of the ship. The krogan…they're unpredictable, violent. There was a reason they got hit with the genophage. Quarians…" he shook his head. "Their mess is backing up the target of our mission, Commander." And when she continued to listen attentively, he voiced the concern nearest to his heart. "And the turian? Ma'am…he's a _turian_."

"And a C-Sec officer. Or he was." She took another sip of coffee, as though unsure how she felt about the past-tense in that description.

"Commander, this warship is the cutting, bleeding edge of Alliance technology. With all due respect," he stopped. Shepard had done nothing to put his back up against the wall, but even as he spoke he knew he was putting himself in her column of xenophobics.

He was _not_ xenophobic, merely…xeno-cautious...the turians would have gotten their heads handed back to them if the First Contact War had played out, and they had not forgotten it. Neither had the other Council races. Humanity had every reason to be cautious, letting the aliens see this kind of technology. It would not do for one of them to share data—quarians were notorious data-miners…

After a few minutes, he coughed. "Sorry, Commander…caffeine on an empty stomach," a weak excuse, but the only one he could think of.

"Yeah, I hear you." Obviously talking about the coffee. "I appreciate your concerns." The sincerity was there; she was not looking for yes-men, but people whose opinions she could count on, even, perhaps especially, when they went against her own. "I'd tell you not to worry, but I understand worrying is part of your job. So let me tell you this to ease your mind: there are certain others among the crew who share your viewpoint. This is still an Alliance vessel, and the Alliance doesn't permit unauthorized civilians to access critical systems."

So _that_ was why she was taking them to Arcturus: to find out how far her Spectre authority reached, since she had aliens on board an Alliance warship.

Which, in plain language, meant the aliens did not have access _yet_. Pressly made to finish his coffee, but found it already gone.

"Grab yourself another cup; it's going to be a caffeinated morning." Shepard gave a yawn that threatened to split her face from ear to ear, before stepping out from behind the partition wall and back onto the CIC.

Pressly watched her go, before looking into the dregs of his cup. It _was_ a caffeinated morning.

-J-

-Author's Note-

Just to clear things up: the _Normandy _still belongs to the Alliance, so Shepard has to observe the Alliance rules governing civilians and access to the ship's various locations, tech, and systems unless/until she is told otherwise. She's actually already stretching her luck by letting the non-humans on the ship, since it _is _a prototype. None of this is an issue in-game, but it really should be addressed somehow...


	50. Broken Pieces

Author's note: The Normandy will soon dock with Arcturus Station, so Shepard can hash a few things out with Admiral Hackett.

-J-

Garrus knew he was one to act before he thought. He knew it, accepted it, and if anyone had a problem with it…well, it was their problem. He was doing his job, and doing it well. With most people taking time for themselves, or to pull themselves together for the 'official', red-tape resolved pulling out (Shepard said she was still drawing up a game plan the brass would sign off on) he, Tali, and the krogan had the run of the ship—well, on the crew deck and in the garage. He _knew _several pairs of watchful eyes tracked the progress of all non-humans aboard the ship. He could live with that kind of scrutiny. It was a welcome break from C-Sec…

He groaned softly, putting his head on his arms. Disillusionment mingled with the aftermath of rash decisions. How was it Lt. Alenko had said? _Acting in haste and repenting at leisure_. Well, that was Garrus too, through and through. And he was just now beginning to regret leaving C-Sec. Or rather, the fashion in which he left it. It was like wondering if a puppy would miss you, or if your in-laws would take proper care of it, and remember what flavor of doggie biscuits it liked.

Garrus, for the record, had never had a _dog_, but the turian equivalent…well, he had never had one of those either. 'Too irresponsible—it would die in a week', his father had said. But his mother got one not long afterward…

…this was no time for fond memories of home. He would get homesick soon enough, he was already homesick for C-Sec, to his own surprise. Yes, the red tape and bureaucracy sucked. Sucked. He loved that human word, turians of course didn't have lips, so it meant less to them, but it _was_ expressive. It sucked worse to have his father's reputation hanging over him, and being measured by it. Thank goodness for Lang and other 'kids his age'—as the Executor put it.

It was one thing to be a kid, and to hear about your father on the news; it was another to have people wonder—whether they said it out loud or not—why father and son couldn't be more alike.

They _were_ alike, Garrus mentally snarled. It was why they did not get along so well while in close proximity. He could imagine the ruckus once Vakerian Sr. found out about his son's sudden departure. Executor Pallin was safe enough, but Garrus had to wonder if the source of his own hard-hitting tendencies might make itself known among the criminal body. He hoped so.

His father would probably be working double shifts for a week. In the Wards. Plainclothes. Looking for trouble. And when a turian went looking for trouble, he _found _it.

Didn't _that_ sound familiar?

He sighed again, mandibles waving almost despondently. He should not have left. Not like that…and not with Shepard acting like she was. He expected more of a Spectre but you'd think she was still answerable to the Alliance, or to C-Sec, the way she kept toeing the line.

He also had the feeling he amused her, as though he put her minded her of someone.

Amused or not, at least his tendency to act first and think later did not bother her enough for her to leave him out of this turian hunt. She must think she could either train him out of it (good luck with that) or divert it into useful channels. Scuttlebutt said she had a hand in the training of quite a few people, of whom most went on to excel in their various fields

A real talent scout…looking at this crew, he could not help but agree she probably was. There was the quarian, a mechanical wizard, there was the krogan…well, he could open doors. Bang his head against the titanium a couple times and see if it didn't buckle.  
There was Alenko, and Chief Williams.

It was a start. Definitely a start.

Garrus leaned on the table, before pilfering one of the sugar packets from the small tray in the center of the table. With the amount of coffee consumed aboard this ship, the tray of sugar and creamer wandered around the crew deck. He had noticed it, just that morning, hidden under a chair in the entertainment corner, with one of the techs snarling at another about the lack of sugary sustenance.

Maybe it was an inside joke.

He opened the packet in half, then mindlessly opened another, pouring the contents of the first sachet slowly into the second. It was something unobtrusive to do with his hands...and required a certain amount of dexterity when the packets were obviously designed to be opened by someone with five fingers instead of three. The sandy substance trickled from one paper prison to the other, little broken pieces of crystal.

Prison. It led him back to C-Sec—everything did, and the second-guessing once things cooled off was not new to Garrus. He could not bring himself to say he had made a jailbreak from the cell of red tape (and his father and his father's cronies breathing down his neck). Still, he had burnt his bridges. Even if he discovered—and it would be to his own shock—that he wanted to go back to C-Sec...he might not be able to.

The thought had never occurred to him, and he drew his mandibles in close to his chin in a frown, followed by a mental shudder as many memories of words directed at belated realizations echoed in his mind. After the echoes died came the sharp memory of Shepard snarling that he had better start thinking...

"Garrus," Shepard had come in, unnoticed. Her expression of tired preoccupation eased somewhat, in the presence of another individual. Her eyes fell on the half dozen shredded sugar packets before her mouth curved into a sympathetic expression of understanding.

He knew that look: too late to back out now.


	51. Pure

Beta-read by Saberlin.  
*For disclaimers about quarians, please see the chapter "Scar".

-J-

Tali took a deep breath as she stepped through d-con into the medbay's small quarantine chamber—usually reserved for containing highly contagious, highly undesirable conditions. However, since it was more of a failsafe than a necessity, the room had been appropriated, the observation windows covered with thick paper, and medical sheets taped up on the inside, so the place did not look quite so jury-rigged.

But it was a pure environment.

Tali exhaled sharply as her suit depressurized, allowing her to pull off the helmet which kept her separated from the rest of the world. The cool air cycling into the room slipped across her skin like a cool, thin scarf of silk.

She caught the flash of her eyes in the tiny mirror hanging on the wall, and padded over to it. Shepard had encouraged her to think of the room as a home away from home, so Tali had unpacked her satchel of belongings. It _was_ nice to feel almost as though she was home—though the clean room was certainly far-removed from anything in the flotilla. And it was such a lot of space to accommodate only one person!

Still, she rather liked it, despite knowing she would eventually start feeling isolated, perhaps lonely. She already missed the bustle of the _Rayya_, and knew it would only get worse.

Tali slid the suit off. She was surprised to find that humans prepared to wear their armor much the same as a quarian wore an environmental suit, with garments worn close to the skin, covered by garments worn to keep the ballistic mesh (or the environmental suit) from rubbing, or wearing uncomfortably.

The clean clothes were a relief from the ones she now cast onto the floor. For lack of a better place to put them, she kicked them under the narrow bed, running the somewhat rubberized deck beneath her bare foot before throwing herself onto the bed.

She really did appreciate the doctor covering all the windows, affording her a bit of privacy. It was not that she thought people would be overly curious to see a quarian without her helmet, it just…it helped when she began feeling like a…a sail out of its shell.

Sail? No, not a sail…that was not the word the sympathetic Dr. Chakwas had used. _Snail_. There it was.

Tali smiled, rubbing the back of her neck. Everyone seemed to like Dr. Chakwas; she certainly did.

She also liked Chief Engineer Adams, whom she had met once, but who had made quite an impression on her (never mind that he had been discussing some aspect of the drive core in her hearing, and natural curiosity made her eavesdrop).

She sometimes felt a little uncomfortable around most of the crew…but only because of the ever-present sensation that they were _staring at her _(more accurately, they were hoping to have a chance to try to see through her tinted visor)_. _She could not help her great interest in all things ship-related, and the Tantalus Core was certainly an engineering marvel.

Stretching out on her back, Tali closed her eyes, letting the cool, pure air drift over her skin. She did not like to think about the effort or expense of maintaining a sterile environment. Shepard called it 'pure', so as not to make it sound… well, to avoid some nuance apparently to her distaste.

Perhaps she felt it sounded too much like putting a specimen in a lab—though Tali had to giggle over that. She had expected to spend the entirety of her Pilgrimage in her environmental suit—she had certainly never expected something, to her way of thinking, as lavish as _this_ arrangement.

Tali heaved a heavy sigh, rubbing the heels of her hands against her eye sockets before looking around the room. _Her_ room, and it was as clean as anything could be.

The galaxy outside was _not_, which recalled her to the reason for having come in here this early in the evening in the first place. She tugged at her under-suit clothes before settling on the floor, dragging her suit over to her. Systematically, Tali began checking for weaknesses in the suit's integrity, checking the filters and functions.

She knew there were several parties concerned about the suit and its ability to hold up, going into the dangerous sorts of places the marines expected. Tali knew too little about the Alliance military to know that Shepard and her team were not being overcautious when they expected 'a whole lot of trouble'. Therefore, she had no way of knowing they tended to speak in more benign terms when she was around, so as not to shake her confidence in the situation (or her courage) prematurely.

The comm-unit on the wall chirruped. Tali set her suit aside, and pressed the answer button. "Yes, Dr. Chakwas?" Her voice sounded so strange without the filter's garbling effect.

"_Supper's begun in the mess, and it's here. You also have a visitor, if you're in a mood._"

"_Hey Tali_," Shepard's voice came over the commlink.

"Oh…of course, Commander. Please." Tali glanced around her room, and heaved the suit onto the small table which doubled as a workspace.

Shepard's shadow moved into the d-con chamber—a much, _much_ tinier version of the one buffering the _Normandy _from the outside world. The d-con beeped 'all clear', and Shepard tapped politely.

Tali smirked before responding, "Come in."

Shepard did so, carrying a tray of dextro-friendly rations in one hand—the d-con would take care of anything impure—and wearing a breathing apparatus.

Caution and double-caution; the reversal of roles felt very odd. For Tali to be the one bare-headed and to have a conversation with someone behind a facemask was...strange, almost unnerving.

"You mind a little company?"

"I'd like that." Tali appreciated the company. After only a few days with the crew, it was still easier to hide in her room than try to integrate. It would stay that way, too, until the _Normandy_ finally departed from Arcturus.


	52. Foreign

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams did not know how Shepard did it, let alone how she put up with it. If the media on Arcturus station had ambushed _her _like that…some unlucky camera-bot would have felt the butt end of her rifle. Hmph. Report that.

For a split second, Shepard had looked as though the idea of sending such a message appealed to her as well, but only for a second. Before the press caught up with their shouts of 'Commander Shepard!' said officer pulled herself together, dropped her bag, and was waiting patiently when the press finally caught up with her.

If Williams ever wondered what a tsunami rolling over a person looked like, she did not anymore. At least with the waves you were dead in minutes. The press could draw out career or character deathlike dyed in the wool sadists if it suited their aims.

And Shepard was the perfect media fodder right now.

Safely away from the scene (dispersed with the rest of the crew as the human tide bore down on Shepard), Williams shifted her bag higher onto her shoulder as she consulted her datapad. The 212 was not based out of Arcturus, but as she now served on the _Normandy_, her accommodations had changed. Most of her stuff was still at her old posting, but she had filled out the requisition forms and gotten the PCS process well underway.

In fact, as suggested by the ever-courteous Alenko, she had gotten the paperwork started as soon as Anderson told her she was to be reassigned to the _Normandy_. She never asked how it happened so fast, she simply accepted it. Between then and now, her belongings had begun to arrive, the small stuff first, she noticed.

Arcturus was not like any place Williams had ever been, let alone stayed for more than a night or two. The feeling of being in a capsule in deep space had yet to hit home. In fact, unless she actively reminded herself she was on a space station, it was easy to think oneself in a sort of city-in-a-box. The interior blocks' lack of windows made her feel a little disoriented, but other than that it was not too bad.

It took her twice as long to find her apartment as it should have, due to several wrong turns and some complications in reading the map. Shepard's sense of direction must be rubbing off, but the sentiment came with a grim sort of smile.

Shepard had, later on during the day in question, mentioned in a ruefully amused sort of way that the _reason_ she ended up where she had on Elysium was because of a wrong turn, after her CO practically threw her off the boat.

Williams was not sure she believed this, but it sounded so improbable she was forced to suspect it was the truth. It was _not_ reassuring.

Finally arriving at her apartment door, she let her bag of gear drop to the floor as she fumbled for her key. The keycard took three swipes before the biometric panel opened. It was strange enough being biometrically scanned: most groundside postings used keys and card readers as locks: not as a first layer of security. Then again, groundside postings were not surrounded by a vacuum on four sides. Not like a station was, anyway.

The scan had to run twice, and the repeated malfunctions of something that should work did nothing for her temper. Strange places always made her irritable until she got used to them, and Arcturus was very strange to her.

In that vein of grumbling irritation, she made a mental note never to try unlocking her door if she had lotion on her hands. The printscanner would never read, and the MPs would come and arrest her for breaking and entering on a military facility.

Or destruction of government property. Or both.

Then the Williams' Story would be out and hello dirtside posting. She grimaced at the almost comedic run of anticipated disasters (not that she took them seriously) before grabbing her bag and entering the apartment.

At least she was still smiling...sort of.

The apartment was small, a living area/kitchenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom. Some of her stuff was already here, piled in the middle of the floor in boxes. Williams dropped her sea bag and kicked her shoes off in the little alcove by the door.

So this was home. She did not like using the word 'home' just yet. The place struck her, as she turned up the heat, as both cold and foreign. It was certainly not a place she belonged in…yet. In fact, more and more, she was beginning to feel like an egg in a case at the commissary: wrapped, packed and chilled.

The lack of personal effects probably attributed to the unwelcoming environment. She could start fixing that…but did not really want to scatter clothes all over the apartment. She was no neat freak, but that was no way to personalize space.

Besides, the military had drilled _order and neatness_ into her. _That_, at least, was familiar and unchanging. It was all perspective, she continued to inform herself, that made a place foreign or familiar.

_So quit being wishy-washy and get on with your job_, she concluded with a smile at one of her father's favorite expressions.

She began opening boxes, poking around at the contents. Well, at least her clothes were here. She spent a long time looking into those boxes, before shifting garments into piles. The strangeness of the room gave way to a mighty desire to procrastinate. She pulled up her trouser leg and touched her ankle speculatively. Hmm…not _too_ hairy for public consumption…

Forget foreign apartments, Williams decided bluntly, rifling through her things here and there, before making a raid on the bathroom's limited necessities. Stuff in boxes was not going anywhere anytime soon—especially with that insanely hard-to-open front door—so why not take a little time and do something familiar?


	53. Silence

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Tali woke with a start, sitting up, her vivid eyes darting around the room, her fist clenching at the blanket. At first she did not realize what it was, exactly, that woke her up. Only when she felt the air pressing against her eardrums did she realize the ship was silent. Utterly silent.

The silence again. But now they were away from the Citadel, en route to trouble, as the Commander put it, with no way off the ship…old habits and reactions came back in full force, stripping away reason and rationale.

Throwing her blankets back, she struggled into her environmental suit, fumbling with it in her hurry. She _knew _there was nothing wrong…but she had to be _sure, _which meant checking things herself.

The all-purpose mess deck was as empty as the air was silent. Sweat beaded on her forehead, as she reminded herself that human ships were always…empty.

Things should be bustling. Except this wasn't a quarian ship; silence did not mean a ventilation unit had gone out…or worse. She _knew _it, but old habits die hard.

"Tali?"

She stifled a shrill 'eep!' of surprise, turning sharply to find Chief Engineer Adams coming around the wall housing the elevator. Breathing hard from the scare, Tali swallowed, pulling herself together. "Anything… wrong with the ship?" If there was, Adams would know, and she trusted Adams.

Obviously nothing _was_ wrong…but she wanted to hear it anyway.

-J-

"Nothing, nothing at all. Just making the usual rounds." Adams peered at the quarian, reminding himself that any ship on the flotilla was unlikely to be like the _Normandy_. The _Normandy_ was the crown jewel of the Fleet, the flotilla was a wonder of adaptation and innovation. It was also a wonder half the ships functioned. Perhaps growing up in an environment like that—with ships and ship tech all around—was, he thought, what made Tali one of the best engineers on the ship, except perhaps himself. Not that he could vouch for her practical application—this was a military vessel and she was a civilian—but when she spoke she left no doubt: she knew what she was talking about. "Why would you think there was something wrong?" He asked gently.

-J-

"Just checking. " She could not _help_ double checking. She trusted Adams, as she trusted the Commander and the Lieutenant. The lack of klaxons probably ought to have told her something, she thought sourly, now that she was fully awake.

-J-

"Everything's running just fine," Adams soothed, taking no offense at the necessity of repeating himself. She was still, after all, just a kid. A gifted young lady, but still a kid. "I'm going to have a cup of coffee, care to join me?" He knew, of course, she could not actually _join_ him, but he meant it kindly, and Tali took it so.

She settled down nervously in one of the padded chairs at the big table, watching the Chief Engineer pour his coffee, before adding cream to it. He set his deep blue mug on the table, its white Alliance insignia facing towards her as he eased slowly into another chair.

"Why would you think there's something wrong, Tali?"

-J-

Tali shrugged, before sighing, fiddling absently with the edge of her hood. "In the Flotilla, silence is the last thing you want to hear. It usually means something bad, that an engine has died, or an air filter has shut down." Tali looked at the table. That was how she had lost her mother, an air filter shutting down, though in fairness it was the microbes that got through the dead filter that left her motherless. Tali forced a laugh, but tapped her clawed fingers on the table, breaking the silence further. "I suppose you don't really have to worry about that on a ship like this…"

Of course not, she berated herself. The _Normandy_ was amazing, there was no way to compare it to anything in the Flotilla. In a way, the silence and emptiness of the mess hall, the sensation of not moving at all, left her homesick. All the familiar signs by which she understood everything to be all right were gone.

She did not see how the humans could sleep at night…but there. They were used to the silence. Or, perhaps, they were not really; so many of them did not sleep for a full eight hours, but got up in the dark and silence to take a lap around the crew deck. Most of the command structure did, and here was Adams.

-J-

"No, no it's not something you'd have to worry about here," Adams assured her. "Old habits die hard, I guess." He took a long sip of his coffee. He understood precious little about quarian Pilgrimages, never having asked about them, but he assumed this was just a stopping point for her. Which was too bad: even though it would break about a hundred regulations, he would have liked to see what she would make of the _Normandy_ from a tech's perspective.

Well, there was always the possibility this whole crazy mission—with Shepard out most hours, dragging Alenko and Williams around with her, and switching in and out of dress blues as often as she changed her mind, things were still percolating on the Citadel even if they had accorded Shepard Spectre status—could take months.

Best make use of what time there was. This was a Spectre vessel and if the best were needed...

He immediately spoke up again, lest it become apparent that he was scheming. "This isn't the first time it's bothered you, is it?" Adams asked as the conversation lapsed, and Tali continued to fidget.

-J-

"No," Tali squirmed. "It's just…on the Citadel, there was a place to go, in case of a malfunction. Here…" she gestured, indicating space itself. "It's different…I'll get used to it."

"Everyone has to. Most kids who get a shipside posting right off the bat don't sleep so well for a couple weeks. Gotta get used to the idea that there's only the fuselage between them and the Great Vacuum."

Tali giggled, relaxing a little. "That's good to know…" It soothed the feeling of being out of place. She watched the engineer continue with his coffee, the silence settling again. It still raised gooseflesh on her skin if she paid it much attention, but it no longer conjured up heart-stopping terror.


	54. Pain

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Still on Arcturus: 'Foreign' runs relatively concurrent. For those who may ask: chronologically 'Silence' comes later this same day, but I did not want Tali's chapters all clustered together. Because these three chapters (and the next one) take place in a relatively short span of time it should not cause too many issues. Just a heads-up.

-J-

If it weren't for the Arcturus routing system, he would never have gotten to his apartment at all. He knew he probably looked pretty rough, with the sunglasses and the wincing and the flinching.

The lights accompanying the wave of media men swarming towards Shepard still seemed burned into the back of his eyes. Shepard's emphatic 'go, go, go', as though directing a tactical exercise, would be funny once his head stopped hurting.

It was cold in the apartment, but he could not be bothered to turn on the heat, or do anything else to alter the nearly pitch black environment. Why would he?

Alenko did not even kick his boots off before flopping face-first onto his bed. For a moment, he let the suffocating darkness of his pillow inhibit his breathing. Then it got too be too much. He dragged the pillow out from under his head and promptly put it _over _his head. Even the little movements necessary to do so made him nauseous.

He was lucky, he reflected, not to be puking up his socks.

At least it was dark here. And quiet.

Commlink. If he didn't turn that off, without fail, someone would make some kind of social call. It would be Murphy of the infamous Murphy's Law out to get him—because Murphy was a bastard, and liked to watch people suffer.

Very carefully, trying not to rotate his head too much, he found the commlink and turned it off.

Thank goodness. Don't anyone, not even Admiral Hackett himself, call and ask Lt. Alenko for anything. Lt. Alenko was not in the building. Consider him dead—leave flowers and go away.

When he had the capacity for such peripheral thoughts, migraines always made him cranky.

And an L2-grade migraine was worse than anything. Normal people didn't have a headjack to add to the neck aches. From the crown of his skull to his shoulder blades ran a line of dull, throbbing pain which seemed partly skeletal, as well as muscular. He hated the drugs, but he hated the pain more. Unfortunately, the drugs were on the table, just out of reach, and he was over here...

He rolled carefully onto his side, his brain slapping painfully against his skull every time his head changed position. With his left hand, he executed a careful if clumsy mnemonic, dragging the bottle from the table. He could not even recall _why _he set it there in the first place. Migraines did interfere with intelligence. He popped two pills dry, and dropped the bottle. Refusing to put himself through anymore pain or discomfort, he simply rolled onto his back, and dragged the pillow back over his eyes. The room could _not_ get dark enough.

Normally, a person could call the apartment quiet as a grave—in the more achy moments, Alenko grumbled it probably would end up _being_ his grave—but when his head ached, silence _became necessary_…every little noise suddenly became not only audible, but _painfully _audible.

Audio-sensitivity, photophobia, nausea, _pain_, the list went on for meters.

He wished whoever was upstairs would turn the music down. On any other day he he would not care. On any other day, he probably would not be able to hear it over his own music, or whatever noise he had running in the background.

But today was not 'any other day'.

He really needed to either climb under the blankets. Orr turn on the heat. Or both. Or take a hot shower and _then_ turn on the heat and crawl in bed.

But the nausea continued to menace him, so he stayed put.

Finally, after an interminable amount of time, the drugs began to work. He wished they could ease the pain running from his neck to his shoulders.

Finally, slowly, he forced himself to sit, up, the nausea quieted to a minimum, the head pain still banging away, roused by movement to torment the head in which it resided. He scooted to the foot of the bed, unlacing his boots, wondering if maybe the retrofit to an L3 would be worth it.

No. Even in this kind of pain, no. Too many horror stories, though why there should be so many stories when the procedure was barely legal surprised him. Blindness necessitating optical implants, scarring, power surges…the side effects could, _could_, get worse. And then, supposedly because so many biotics survived the procedure but never woke up, remaining in a vegetative state, you were awake on the table. Drugged out of your mind, but awake.

He shivered. He'd take the pain.

He nudged his boots under the bed, removing the danger of tripping on them later, as he shambled about, zombie-like. The thought 'zombie' brought back memories of the husks back on Eden Prime, the LED-blue lights of them searing his vision, even though it was only a memory.

You knew it was bad when remembered light made your eyes and every nerve and brain cell attached to them ache.

Back into the main room of the apartment, over to toggle the settings on the environmental control, then swiftly back to bed went Alenko. The nausea was coming back, making the pain worse, so a shower was out of the question. He wished he had learned how bio-feedback worked. Spacers were known for having cold feet, or perceiving themselves to have cold feet, but migraines had a similar effect, and all the thick winter socks in the world were of little avail when the one worked with the other...

And the hotpack was in the kitchen somewhere. See? No sense of methodology when in pain.

Alenko groaned, rolling over onto his stomach, one arm under his head so he had room to breathe. At least he wasn't on duty. And at least there was no mission running. This was Arcturus. It was safe enough. The void was outside.

The drugs began to work, but slowly, leaving him to wait for the pain to subside enough to go to sleep.


	55. Sink or Swim

Beta-read by Saberlin.

This takes place within an hour or so of the conclusions for "Foreign" and "Pain".

-J-

Joker really hated his condition sometimes. Most of the time, he played it off—what else could he do? But still, it stung a bit to have to sit out on the fun-looking sports. It was worse in public schools than as an adult, though. And there _were_ some _strange_ sports practiced aboard the _Normandy_.

Shepard played racquetball. His only experience with racquetball came from an old sort-of-girlfriend's enthusiasm for the sport. Alenko liked to kayak, but Alenko had weird taste in sports and/or hobbies. Before enlisting Williams had, unsurprisingly, played lacrosse and field hockey. He knew all this from having been in the mess during the 'sports' discussion with the ground team.

He had declined to chip in, and received digs in the ribs from Williams for it.

And he was pretty sure (though he could not prove it) that Williams could not swim. At all. Just something he'd picked up once or twice in overheard conversation, given her derision for swimming as a sport. People who hated it usually were not very good at it.

After Pressly's announcement that it was just him and the crosswords, Joker knew he was not so badly off, with regards to not being particularly sporty. If anyone needed a sport it was _Pressly_—something to help him work through that neurotic streak of his.

Joker himself would feel better if Pressly took up a sport, so when it came to sink-or-swim time while piloting the _Normandy_, the navigator might ease up on the pilot doing all the hard work.

He dropped his bag onto the locker room floor. It was late so the pool, while open, would not likely be in use. The painstaking process of getting changed and prepared to use the pool in the first place always went easier if the room was not packed with people. People did not bother him, but they had tripped over his crutches before (and several came close to being concussed by said crutches).

There was no one in the pool.

Scratch that. There was a lifeguard (who looked half-asleep in his chair—better not let the pool manager see that) and…

He watched her jump from the high platform, execute two almost lazy flips, before hitting the water with a force that made him ache just to watch it. She made it look easy.

He could not help a single straying thought of what it would be like if _he_ hit the water that hard. Shuddering he got himself over to one of the lanes for lap swim. The diver did not pay any attention as she—in her dark cherry-red suit—climbed out of the water and headed confidently back over to the platform, and made her way up the ladder.

Whatever floated your boat.

Joker eased into the water, leaning his elbows on the deck as he prepared to pull his goggles on. Initially, his philosophy on swimming (as a child with no choice in the matter of learning how to do it) was that he swam to live, he did not live to swim, and 'sink or swim' was a good mantra to remember.

Things were different as an adult. He eased the rest of the way into the water and started forward. Swimming was as good, better, than anything zee-gee. It was a weightless environment (good for the legs) but he still got the workout (good for the shoulders).

Even as he changed directions, somewhat clumsily as he had to _stop_ swimming to change directions, he heard the diver hit the water again. Water conducted sound better than anything else, so there was no real escape from the bone-shattering sound. If the pool was full, it would not matter, but since it was not…

Sink or swim. As much as he enjoyed swimming, if he stopped working his arms he _would_ sink.

Cool water continued gliding over his skin. On any other day, he might have had a lap counter, or something to help keep track of them, but seeing as how he did not care how far he went, so long as some of the stir-craziness of being trapped on a spaceship wore off, he did not care.

He surfaced at his starting point again, to find the diver already on the platform. He leaned back against the wall of the pool, elbows on the deck for balance and watched her. He was no judge of diving technique, but it looked pretty solid and flawless to him. So when she hoisted herself out of the deep water, onto the deck and went for her towel, he gave something like a golf clap. Artistry _should_, after all, be appreciated.

She stopped, turning around. From this distance her features were hard to make out, but once she had her towel wrapped around her waist she grinned…

He knew that stance, even before she laughed. He'd seen it quite a few times, even if it looked a bit different when she didn't have her clothes on.

He winced, making a mental note never to let that sentiment with that wording slip out by accident, or he would end up deader than last week's mystery meat. He was not Alenko, and could not get away with such slips of the tongue. He had not yet figured out why Alenko's slips were (apparently) 'cute' while _his_ slips were fodder for retaliation and rebuttal (not that Joker minded).

"Heya Joker," Williams waved cheekily at him. Her dark hair, not in a tight bun, but braided with the braid doubled up, fell free of the restraining cap as she pulled that article loose.

He waved back mutely. Who was so sure Williams couldn't swim? He watched her pad into the locker room, unable to reconcile one of the tougher women of his acquaintance with a graceful high-diver.

Sink or swim.

This was definitely a 'sink' kind of day.

Joker took a deep breath before returning to swimming laps. The things you never knew about people.


	56. Midnight Munchies

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Alenko woke groggily but suddenly—groggily because of the painkillers, suddenly because his stomach rumbled, loud and persistently. It reminded him of having hit the snooze on his alarm clock too often at home….no, _here_. He was horizontal, sleeping like a normal person, not in a sleeper pod.

Three times and the alarm clock switched from beeping insistently to blaring one of the weird offshoots of heavy metal—he wanted to call it Viking metal. He could not understand a word the singers said except here and there, but it was too loud and had too many kick drums. It always achieved the desired result and kept him limited to two presses of the snooze button.

Kick drums were something Alenko conscientiously avoided, for obvious reasons.

He sat up, ruffling his hair. Arcturus did not really feel like 'home' to him. He had not spent enough time there for that. He was not sure he would ever truly rewrite where home was in his mind. Home was still Vancouver, even if he had not lived there for…he abandoned trying to tabulate it. More than ten years.

He did not need a rebound headache; that nasty twinge off towards one temple indicated his migraine would be all too happy to come back and keep him company.

He could think of a lot of things he would rather do than deal with a migraine. Laundry among them, though not because he enjoyed it. No, right now the most pressing thing was keeping his stomach from trying to digest itself.

He got up, moving towards the kitchenette, pulling the directory of Arcturus' facilities off the fridge. Keying the lights to a tolerable level, he hoisted himself to sit on one of the unused portions of counter—with an amused 'don't let Mom see me doing this' smile—he examined the paper. He had no intention or inclination of going exploring.

Feeding a biotic was a very serious business, especially a biotic recovering from a migraine.

Alenko put a finger by the most likely-looking place before checking the time. Midnight…and like most places here, this one ran twenty-four seven. He hopped down, put the directory back on the fridge, got dressed, and got directions from his omni-tool. No wandering around like a tourist for him. No sir.

Midnight munchies, then home. He considered bringing his sunglasses, but opted not to. The headache was mostly under control, and Arcturus did not have many places with unusually bright or flashing lights.

-J-

He could smell Pandora's Box long before he saw it, and knew he had made the right choice. It was hard to screw up 'pub grub', though it _had_ certainly been done. This place, however, smelled first class. Grease, frying batter, a faint whiff of beer, and something indefinable, probably the special secret ingredient (or ingredients as the case often was) all these places seemed to have.

His midnight munchies (to put it euphemistically) approved the smell, quieting as though waiting patiently. It would not last, but the thought was amusing nonetheless.

He did not like the crush of people, but did not fail to notice the place was not as full as it looked. The place was just small, almost cozy, filled with a dozen or so people.

Good prices, good food—it smelled _really good_—Pandora's Box indeed. Only this box you never wanted to close, which was probably where the name came from.

"All right, honey," Alenko looked away from the menu overhead to see the lady behind the counter looking at him. "Yes you, come on," she beckoned with a finger, exuding the indefinable aura of a mother hen. No, more like a best friend's mother, who figured her son's best friend was as good as one of her own boys, since he was always at the house.

Alenko stepped forward, listing off what seemed most appetizing at the time he read it from the list. There was a moment when the chatter nearest to him faltered, but he learned long ago not to be self-conscious about how much a hungry biotic could pack away. There was no point. It might garner gawking, but failure to maintain himself meant being benched.

Alenko hated being benched.

"It's good to see a boy with a healthy appetite." The woman's tone her no sarcasm, only warm approval. "All right, honey, you just hang around for a bit, and we'll get that for you."

He did not repress a smile as he took the receipt before moving back from the counter, eagerly anticipating midnight munchies.

They would be heading out into the Traverse soon, and he should enjoy real food while he could. The _Normandy_ was not big enough for a full galley, to the disappointment of many.

Still, it was not all bad. He was a little old to believe in 'adventures', but he had to admit he almost felt like he was embarking on one. Maybe it was the Spectre. No, it was easier to think of her as the Commander. Calling her 'Spectre' gave him the creeps.

_Spectres are trouble. _

Joker had that right…

He heard his number, and half-fought his way through the milling crowd which had moved and crushed in around him. "All right, honey, you enjoy that now."

"I will, thanks." He picked up the bags, noting the pleased smile on her face before half-fighting his way to the door.

The air of the corridor seemed cold after the hot, grease-scented restaurant as he made his way back to his apartment. It was not a long walk back either, though without his omni-tool it would have taken too long to get back. Nothing was worse than cold pub grub, except cold rations.

He shuddered at the thought. But back to the apartment, back to quiet and solitude, and the food was still hot. Nearly one o'clock—this late night would make him next to useless tomorrow—and here he was, chowing down, with only the radio running for company.


	57. Dreams

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Timeframe: The night before the _Normandy _pulls out from Arcturus, a day or two after "Midnight Munchies".

-J-

Smoke coiled around her; sweat dripped down her face, leaving streaks in the concrete dust, grit, and grime on her skin. Her clothes had superficial scuff damage, as did her skin, but a layer of medigel over the wounds and a couple omnigel patches to hold her clothes together were the best she could manage.

She could not tell how many hours had passed, only that the sun was still parading across the sky. It _felt_ like days, but she could not say anything more than that.

"We have to fall back!" He was nameless, faceless, not Alliance. Not a soldier. Not a policeman, he wore civilian clothes, shredded from some collision with the ground, as sweaty, smelly and grimy as she was.

"We can't." The words came out, almost dismissive. This was no time to fall back, if they did, the enemy would keep pushing and pushing. Appeasement never worked. They weren't here to be satisfied with a spit of land here or there. They were after people.

There were lots of people.

And lots of enemies.

But lots of civilians still hiding, hoping for the worst to get over with. They did not want to see 'worst' as she knew it. It was worse than waiting for a bad thing to be over. The enemy would take you away, make you wish you were dead. Year after year of drudgery until despair and imprisonment finally killed you.

Better to die fighting. To make them kill you.

"Corporal! We have to get out of here!" This one was a woman, bleeding from an unsealed head wound.

She broke out the medigel, weapons clunking clumsily as she moved towards the woman. She had no weapon rack on armor to secure them on; she wished she had both. "If we fall back, others are going to suffer for it." She applied medigel to the woman's head wound. There was precious little to scavenge from the enemy, but precious little was better than nothing.

The dead did not need omnigel, medigel, weapons, ammunition. She had burned through half a block already, had run out once. If she got out of this, she would carry a spare, from here on in.

_Boom_. The ground rocked, chunks of concrete flying through the air, shrapnel-like. She raised an arm to shield her face, felt some of the small chunks drive into her arm, but ignored the discomfort. Her body had reached a point where minimal hurts no longer registered as anything except a passive sting. She did not waste medigel patching them up.

"They're making another push! Don't fall back!" Her voice carried over the noise as shouts and jeers, made intelligible by her translator cut over the settling of the last volley. She scrambled forward, presenting as low a profile as she could and finding a position fore of the front line.

She took the best cover she could, propped her rifle against her shoulder, handguard in her hand as she frowned into the sights. Thank goodness the last owner used a decent scope.

"Not one more…" Single shot to the chest, followed by another. The batarian had not hit the ground before she picked another target.

Not one more.

More gunfire joined her own, those of her ragtag band of civilians scrambling towards her position. There was only one way to get them moving forward. She had to put pressure on the batarians…she scrambled forward again during a lull in the fire. She reached cover—barely—before more gunfire sounded.

But she saw what she needed. She hated those…things…with the needle-like teeth, looking like some kind of skinned creature. They regenerated like krogan—she ought to know what they were—but were faster, nastier. One civilian, no longer much use in a fight, had a mangled arm from trying to fend one off. The needle-like teeth sank in so deep…and she was afraid the wound would infect.

But these creatures were a weak link. Some of them liked to play with fire, scorching stone as they came, apparently for the sheer delight of watching things blacken or shrivel before them. Stone, the dead, trash, it did not matter.

She shifted, getting close to the ground. _Boom_. Her rifle barked.

_WHOOM! _The fuel containers on the creature's back ignited, her round puncturing it just to the left of the creature's head. The thing exploded violently, turning the creature into a cinder, blasting fragments of the tanks into those clustered around it.

More gunfire, then her own. The others began pressing forward. "Take the tanks!" she shouted, seeing how effective doing so ended up. They needed an edge. The pyros (for lack of a better word) provided it. If they could keep them back, they were an advantage.

_WHOOM!_ Another exploded. The enemy was learning, reorganizing; the pyros stepping back, trying to get out of range.

Back to grenades, and faster than she expected. Her men swarmed to the new front line she had established, heartened by the explosions, the thinning of the enemy's ranks. Two more sets of tanks went up, causing further dismay for the enemy.

Her people had the advantage of the terrain, of being dug in.

_Boom_. A grenade exploded somewhere in front of her. The concrete shielded her, but she had to adjust her stance. Something on the ground slipped under her foot; she fell backwards, still clutching her rifle. One thought burned in her mind as she fell…

-J-

"_Not one more!" _Shepard's dream shout, coupled with a very real feeling of falling, woke her. Her dim cabin was silent, cool, familiar. There was no smoke, no concrete dust, no vorcha, no batarians. Nothing but friendly darkness, and apartments on the other side of the walls.

She shook her head, running a hand through her damp hair. She hated it when the jumble of memories and blanks from Elysium intruded into her dreams. She never remembered them upon waking; there was just the unsettled feeling of having forgotten something important.


	58. Finding A Niche

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Chief Engineer Adams wiped the sweat from his brow, his eyes burning with the combination of an early morning and the vivid lights of the drive core. With the _Normandy_ pulling out of Arcturus and formally a Spectre vessel—whatever _that _turned out to mean to the brass—he was present before his shift officially started.

His presence put the tail end of the night crew on edge. Adams was nice enough, but he was a strict taskmaster and a perfectionist during duty hours.

He almost missed Tali lurking quietly by the doors, flashes of light from the ship's drive core sliding smoothly across her faceshield. It was a point of pride with Adams to know everything that went on in _his_ domain. "Morning."

-J-

Tali jumped, not intending to be noticed, in case anyone thought she was spying on secrets. She _wasn't_—she simply wanted a look. "Good morning." At least the words did not sound as uncomfortable as she felt. It was one thing to chat with Adams in the mess, it was another to see how far into engineering she would be allowed to go.

"What're you doing down here?" She suspected he already knew the answer and was politely pretending he did not.

She took courage from his amiability, and that he had not ordered her to do an immediate about-face. "I just wanted to see the drive core…that you could fit it into a ship this size is amazing. It's so trim. There's nothing even _close_ to this in the Flotilla..." The cleanliness of the engine room struck Tali—she'd seen dirtier _medical_ facilities. "_Not_," she added quickly, "that I'm taking notes, or anything!"

-J-

Adams once again considered what _Spectre vessel_ meant, and whether he could _bend_ a few usually rigid Alliance rules. They needed all the help they could get…

Still thinking, he glanced back to the small force of engineers comprising this shift and found most of them gawking at Tali with glazed expressions. Clearly _someone—_several someones—were not paying attention. Anyone could see Tali had been kidding about sending notes back to the Flotilla…no, it wasn't a need to update their techspeak, it was just the presence of a non-human in engineering.

Which _was _odd.

It was partly due to the inattention to their workstations that he barked, "Oi! The core's going to blow up while you're not looking!" as he waved them back to work.

His crew jumped before ruefully grinning at one another.

Adams shook his head. By now they'd had plenty of time to stare at the non-humans, they did _not_ need to do it in main engineering.

Tali moved closer to his shoulder, and tested the waters again. "I don't believe you don't have sensors for that sort of thing."

Adams bit his lip, trying to stifle the chuckle threatening to blow his reputation as a stern taskmaster. He could be amiable off duty: on duty, he made sure the core didn't blow up and his underlings didn't divide by zero or something equally foolish.

One of the engineers eyed Tali apprehensively as she moved to stand between Adams and himself. He just on the verge of saying something when Adams silenced protest with a demand for a report read-out.

Talent was talent and Adams therefore an unprecedented license with 'Spectre vessel' and the propriety of nonhumans in engineering.

Taking the hint the engineer obeyed, listing numbers.

Adams scowled. It would be boring if the _Normandy_ ran perfectly balanced between energy outputs and power balances from the get-go, but the fact she _could_ and did _not_ provided enough of an issue to keep the engineering team swearing softly, but essentially happy.

Bored engineers ended up tinkering. '_Fixin' on'_ to coin a phrase. It was not good policy to try 'fixin' on' a prototype warship.

"So why is it…" Adams cut his response to the readout off, mouth twisting.

"The shields are running high for safety; it's fouling the outputs." Tali suggested, tapping her clawed fingers against the shields. "The redundancies' extra protection is nice, but not necessary."

Adams wasn't the only one frowning. "How did you..." he started, mostly because now that she pointed it out, he could see it himself. He would have found it eventually—that was the truth—but how long would it have taken?

"On the Flotilla," Tali's attention remained fixed on the display, "we don't have expensive shielding, so we find it necessary to 'pad' the cores with multiple shield arrays. But the more shielding you have in close proximity to the core, the more energy is _absorbed_. It's all those particles pinging around. I'll bet that if these shields ran on batteries, you'd drain them very quickly.

"The energy you're looking for is leeched off, because the shields don't the core is not leaking, but is doing what it's supposed to do. So," she summed up, "reduce the redundant shielding, and you can increase your output. With a ship this new and this advanced, I don't understand why they're still doubling up. Unless it's for the benefit of their engineers," she appended politely. "You don't train someone one way and tell them 'but do it this way in the real world'."

A ringing silence followed. It _was_ standard Alliance procedure to double up on everything, whether you needed to or not. The _redundant _redundant safety protocols especially.

But Tali had a point, as Adams thought about it. Within seconds he was dragging up lists of numbers, arrays of figures. "There it is," Adams mused aloud.

"Yes, see? You wouldn't have to lower the shielding much…" Tali pointed. "Just a notch or two, so you can see the theory in action for yourself."

"Like foam rubber stopping sound waves in a big room." Adams nodded.

"Exactly—it's a basic engineering principle, but in deep space…"

"Safety first…" Adams finished. Spaceships might not make a crew feel like an egg in its shell all the time, but they were designed with that in mind…


	59. Pajama Party

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Timeframe: En route to Therum.

-J-

Tali awoke late in the night, the silence pressing horribly against her. It took her only a moment or two to remember she was not on the _Rayya_, that the silence did not mean terrible things were happening.

Carefully, she got up, pulled her helmet on, and checked the seals, before slipping out of the clean room. Late as it was, the deck was only dimly lit, mostly by small lights designating paths between the rows of sleeper pods or back to the showers and lavatories.

Tali began to walk, planning to simply exercise herself back to sleepiness, but found Shepard sitting upalone, with a single lamp overhead lit brightly in the mess hall. "Commander?"

"Tali," Shepard shifted in her chair. "What's up?"

Tali frowned then shrugged, remembering this curious expression was 'one of those humanisms', not a literal question. "Nothing much…would you mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." Shepard waved to the empty mess table.

Tali took the seat opposite Shepard, who was industriously fiddling with her omni-tool. "Something on your mind?"

Tali considered for a moment, then shrugged. Chatting beat sitting here in quiet contemplation – she'd had enough of silence for one night. "Well, your ship's _amazing_, to start with." Shepard smiled, looking up from whatever she was doing. "I've never seen a drive core like the _Normandy's_ before. I can't believe you were able to fit it into a ship this small." Tali looked around the mess deck, spacious and almost opulent compared with its counterparts among the Migrant Fleet. "I'm beginning to understand why you humans have been so successful. I had no idea the Alliance vessels were so advanced!"

"_Normandy's_ a prototype. Cutting edge technology…so it's kind of a secret."

"I understand. I really do," Tali answered eagerly. "You know, a month ago, I was patching a makeshift fuel line into a converted tug ship in the Flotilla. Now, I'm on one of the most advanced vessels in Citadel space! I have to thank you again for bringing me along. Traveling on a vessel like this is a dream come true for me." Tali ran her hands over the table.

"I didn't know you were into ships."

Tali shrugged, her vivid eyes wide with enthusiasm. "It comes with being a quarian. The Migrant Fleet is the key to the survival of my people. Ships are our most valuable resource. But we don't have anything like this. We make do with castoffs, second hand equipment. We try to keep them running for as long as we can. You know, some of the fleet's larger vessels date all the way back to our original flight from the geth." Big clunkers, too, compared with the nimble little slip _Normandy_ was.

A slip with claws.

Shepard exhaled at the idea of three century old equipment. "You're still using ships that old?" An impressive feat, certainly.

"We have little choice," but it was funny to see Shepard trying to wrap her head around equipment that old still in use. "They're constantly being repaired, modified, and refitted. They aren't pretty but they work. Mostly." And when they didn't, it was disastrous. Usually.

"What's it like? Living on the Flotilla?" Shepard asked.

"Crowded. But the bonds among my people are strong. We've tried to make ourselves as independent as possible on the Flotilla." When Shepard continued to peer curiously at her, Tali continued, pleased with the interest. "We grow our own food, mine and process our own fuel. But some things we just can't make on our own. A patch to maintain hull integrity requires raw materials we just don't have. That's why our Pilgrimages are so important.

"They are also necessary to maintain genetic diversity among the fleet. But no ship wants to accept someone who will be a burden on them. So to prove our worth we embark on a Pilgrimage. I've already told you a bit about this."

Shepard nodded quickly. "Yes, I remember."

"Well, we set out alone, leaving the Flotilla and our families behind us. We only return once we have found something of value we can bring back to the fleet. This is presented as a gift to the captain of the ship we wish to join. If the gift is accepted we are welcomed into the crew." Tali shrugged. "It's far easier said than done."

Shepard nodded in agreement. After all, Tali wound up with people shooting at her, and got sucked into the intergalactic equivalent of a spy-vid. "Can a captain choose to reject a gift?"

Tali chuckled. "That doesn't happen often. Most captains are eager to increase the size of their crew. It increases their standing in our society. Even when a gift isn't particularly valuable, the captain usually accepts it out of a sense of tradition. However, there is a stigma to presenting a substandard gift. It's not the best way to make a good impression on a new community. Most Pilgrims don't return until they find something worthwhile. What about you? Your family?"

"Dead. Years ago. We were attacked by batarians."

Tali gaped beneath her facemask. "Was it…bad?"

"Pretty. But I don't want to give you nightmares."

"Thank you. So, that is why you're in space?" Shepard nodded. "You know, we quarians spend our whole lives on the move, and yet we're never really away from home. Does that…sound familiar?"

Shepard smiled at the obvious attempt to cheer her up. "Yeah. Sums it up pretty well."

"So, what are you doing with you omni-tool?" Tali seized on a safer subject.

"Refining a hacking program…want to look?"

"I'd _love_ to," Tali moved around to sit beside Shepard. "This is good…a little sloppy, but it does the trick."

"I used it on Eden Prime, to hack the geth."

"You came up with this, in the middle of a battle?" Tali gaped.

"Well, not all of it," Shepard shifted. "We use this sort of thing on VIs in training."

"Can I take a closer look?" _Maybe_ refine it a bit…

"Go ahead."


	60. Trapped

Beta-read by Saberlin.

(A warning in advance: this story does not cover all missions in their entirety, start to finish, we just hit the highlights.)

Location: Artemis Tau Cluster, Knossus System, Planet Therum

-J-

Her feet slapped against the ground, the sturdy, rubberized tread keeping her from slipping, even as she flailed. Her shoulder ached, her lungs screamed, her ribcage shook with the combined effort to keep breathing and choke back sobs of terror terror. The rickety metal walkway shook, rattled, and creaked as she sprinted along it.

Behind her, the warbling synthetic chatter of the geth communicating drew closer, lights from their heads flashing across the hostile landscape, as they chased her down. She rounded a corner and overbalanced, grabbing at the metal railing. The rusty bar shifted, the uneven surface grating against her sweating palm.

She could not resist a look back, the way she had come. She could not see the geth, but the lights indicating sensory sweeps continued to pan back and forth, white bars in the red cavern of Therum.

Her head ached, her brain refused to work, and she was not sure she could call her biotics to slam the geth back.

"Where is she?" The uncouth, harsh voice was not geth, but it chilled her blood and made her skin sweat profusely, more than the harsh heat of Therum had managed to make her do so far. "Move it, you useless buckets! Saren wants her. _So go get her_!"

With a whimper she took off again, heedless of the noise she was making. Blue light and reflective tiles caught her eye, rising in tiers, like footholds in the cliff wall. She stopped running again, slowing to a trot then leaning heavily on the railing, panting and trying not to choke on her own saliva.

She knew the ruins. The geth and their - their what? Overseer? - did not. Biting her lip, and letting it slide free of her teeth a few times, she came to a decision. It was better than whatever was waiting for her at the hands of the geth.

But still…_geth_? Beyond the Perseus Veil? Unheard of!

The geth chatter grew nearer, the sounds of metallic feet on metallic walkway galvanizing her into action. She took off again, still sprinting with all she had, knowing if she did not reach her destination soon, she might simply drop dead before the geth got to her. In shape she may be, but her line of work did not usually call for running great distances in hopes of escaping murderous synthetics.

"There she is! _There she is_!"

She screamed, covering her head as a blast of shotgun shot went wide, peppering the walkway behind her in a chorus of ricocheting pellets. She found she could raise a barrier to protect herself, but it was not a very good one. Panic, and the necessity to keep running robbed her of much concentration.

She slipped into the scaffolding against the cliff face, forcing her protesting muscles to keep her moving, to keep her from stopping. She did not want to die…and it seemed to her as though everything from the environment to these uninvited guests was hostile.

She hopped onto a rung on the ladder, skipping the first altogether before levering herself up as quickly as she could.

She gained the top of the ladder, but no one else was shooting at her. Swearing, certainly, but not shooting. From here she could see the creature with the shotgun, and her stomach twisted in revulsion. A krogan. A krogan looking up at the moving blue collection of dots identifying her as his target.

Setting her mouth in a thin line, she hurried along before the geth could pull down the scaffolding, or climb up it. _They_ were not inhibited by climbing ability. She reached the alcove she needed, the geth on her heels. With a cry of effort she biotically _pushed_ against the scaffold, but did not succeed in knocking it down. She only damaged it, causing it to collapse, twisting under its own weight. But it was still standing, still affording an adventurous climber access to the alcove.

Affording the krogan, and his geth, access to _her._

The geth warbled, and she backed away from the opening. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the console. The lights of the geth's heads were suddenly peering into the room, cautiously sweeping across her like lights in a dancehall. She could not physically reach the controls in time…

She took a few more paces back, stumbling into a concave area of the floor. She was not sure what it did, but it meant her next biotic flail of power would more likely save her than damn her…

Numb with fear, she slammed the out of reach control panel biotically.

The Prothean defense system whirred to life, just as she _pushed_ the geth back. The blue barrier curtain suddenly flickered between the outside world and herself. She did not have time to give a nervous titter of relief before she suddenly found herself suspended above the floor, unable to move, a second shield or energy wrapping itself over her, encasing her. Panicking over having hit something she obviously should not have, she found she could not move to trigger the _reach _she needed_._

The krogan appeared shortly afterward, squinting at her, his thin lips twisted into a grimace. "What's this? He slammed it with his shotgun butt a few times. "Well? Get it down!"

One of the geth chattered at him, which he seemed to understand. "What do you mean you can't get it down? Find another way in!" The krogan turned aggressively, his throat wobbling and bulging slightly, his murderous eyes fixed on her. "Clever, Doctor. But really stupid. We'll get in there. And now, you can't even run." He lumbered off. A few of the geth stayed, trying to cut through the barrier curtain with no success.

How could this be happening? And why was it happening to her? Heedless of the geth, or of maintaining the composure expected of an adult asari, she gave a dry sob. Caught between relief and renewed panic, Dr. Liara T'Soni dissolved into tears.


	61. Antsy

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Liara T'Soni's first thought was that she was hearing things, or imagining them. How long had she been trapped here? The only good thing was that the geth had not gotten in (and with them that awful krogan). Regardless, the sounds of carefully moving feet on the mangled ironwork scaffolds did not sound like geth, for geth chatter did not accompany the footfalls. In fact, the voices were female.

"Could somebody help me? Please?" Liara swallowed, hoping beyond hope to see asari commandos sent out to retrieve her. It was not as though her presence here was any great secret…

She was disappointed, but not entirely. Two human women and a quarian came prowling up the scaffolding, heavily armed, but in defensive postures. Visors blocked much of their faces, the light from the tiled walls reflected back, further obscuring features.

"What are you doing up there?" The question as undoubtedly a serious one, but tinged with surprise at finding an asari in such a…compromising position.

It was embarrassing, the fact she had gotten herself into the jam through panicky carelessness, so Liara sidestepped the question altogether. The woman's tone was kind, but this was still embarrassing. "Can you hear me out there? I'm trapped, I need help!" An understatement, but if they were here, they were obviously not allied with the geth. She could not imagine a scenario in which a quarian would willingly work with the geth.

They must have cut through a great deal of the mechanical monstrosities to get here. Enough to get out of here safely?

The leader reached up, touching the barrier curtain, as if puzzled by it before giving her attention back to the trapped asari. Liara still could not make out much behind the face shield, but the voice that issued from behind it was still competent and compassionate. Thank goodness for that. Finding oneself trapped like this was embarrassing to begin with. A child's mistake, Liara chided herself bitterly.

"What…happened to you?" She poked the curtain again as she asked, as though half-expecting to put a finger through it.

Liara was reminded of…what was the human creature? A monkey with a stick: poke the object of curiosity to see if it reacted. No; that was _not _the impression this soldier gave. She wished she had more to go on, with regards to humans, than other people's opinions and hearsay!

"I'm not buying it, Commander," the other human woman muttered

"You think it's a set up?" the quarian asked softly, but not softly enough to go unheard.

Liara pursed her lips, taking back some of Ylanda's assessment on humans and monkeys. It was not as though she _wanted_ to be in need to rescuing. How _dare_ they accuse her of being an _enemy_ when she was obviously the one in _distress_?

"Listen." Liara forced her voice calm, determined not to show her irritation. The Commander, at least, seemed genuinely concerned with her predicament, and not expectant of some sort of trap, or ambush. "This thing I am in? It is a Prothean security device. I _cannot_ move. I have _tried_. So…so I need you to get me out of it. All right…?" Come to think of it, why was why the human military here?

But if they were military…what about the quarian?

And…weren't generic humans supposed to be violent thugs, a couple steps shy of a krogan in terms of temper and temperament? Well, the one woman was _certainly_ confirming Callia's assessment of humans in general. If she could have done so unnoticed, Liara would have sniffed disparagingly.

Or perhaps not: she could talk a good fight, she knew…but putting words into action (or speaking harshly at all) did not come easy for her. She would do as she had always done, and remain a wallflower.

"So, we just need to get past the energy field? That's it?" The Commander rapped her knuckles against the forcefield. It did not spark, or crackle under her hand, but remained like liquid plastiglass made solid. The Commander glanced back at her human comrade.

The other human shook her head in disapproval, presumably making a face to accompany the gesture.

"So what is it, and how do we get you out?" the Commander asked.

Thank goodness not all humans in this galaxy, Liara thought snappishly, were hulking specimens of 'go kill it. It was reassuring to know they could leave the thinking to better people. Thank goodness _someone _competent was directing said simians at the next target.

At least in this case.

And she shouldn't call them simians. After all, it was only the one being rude.

"It is a Prothean _barrier curtain_, not a generic forcefield," Liara corrected, unable to stop herself. "I knew it would protect me from the geth, but I…I must have hit something I shouldn't have." Liara's skin turned faintly purple as she blushed, her cheeks burning as she said this last bit as quickly as possible.

"It's okay; we'll get you out." The revelation did not surprise the Commander. She mumbled something Liara did not quite catch to her teammates, but from what Liara heard in response from the quarian, she understood it was a question relevant to a rescue attempt.

"Obviously sound waves can travel through it. If we had a sonic emitter, we might be able to disrupt it." The quarian shook her head. "This really isn't my area of expertise."

"The defenses cannot be shut off from the outside. The only way to shut down the defenses are in here, on that console." Liara tried to indicate the console behind her.

"That's okay, we're good at finding doors," the Commander waved reassuringly.

"Or making one: remember that mining laser?" the second human asked.

"Sounds good. We'll be right back."

"Be careful," Liara cautioned. "A krogan is with the geth. They have been trying to get past the barrier." But the team was gone. Liara wished them success, so they could hurry and get her loose.

Her nose itched.


	62. Hero

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Liara and the away team barreled out onto Therum's surface. The iron catwalk rattled beneath their feet as the ground below began to show molten hotspots. A thick haze of heat, dust, and smoke clouded everything, except the shadowy form of the _Normandy_.

"Go! Head for the ship!" Williams kept Tali and Liara in front of her, as the catwalk began reacting to the heat.

Williams only registered that Shepard was still behind her, not realizing that Shepard had fallen behind, checking the terrain for geth.

The growl of the _Normandy's _engines gave them reason to hope. It hovered like a rescuing eagle, shifting slightly, but with cargo bay doors open, shouts of encouragement and warning issuing from within.

"You're gonna have to jump!" Fear and adrenaline rendered Williams' voice sharp and several octaves higher than usual.

"Are you crazy!" But Tali's eyes remained fixed on the gap between the end of the walkway and the _Normandy_.

"Just close your eyes and do it!" Williams slung her rifle across her shoulders.

Tali hit the railing first, leaping onto it like a cat before springing towards the cargo bay. One of the garage crewmen caught her, swinging her around, using her momentum to send her bumbling out of the way and into Garrus.

Liara screamed as she jumped, but she, too, landed safely.

"_Tell them to move it!_" Joker shouted.

Finally, Williams sprang forward, landing so solidly that she only needed to grab a nearby shoulder to maintain her balance.

-J-

"We still don't have Shepard!" Alenko shouted back over the noise. The heat dissipated the last of his migraine, but the noise still seemed to reverberate, as if he could hear the rumbling of the surface in his bones rather than in his ears.

"_Tell her to move faster!" _Joker shouted back, voice taut with concentration.

A draft of hot air sent the _Normandy_ rocking this way and that as Alenko crept forward…

Shepard did not break stride, even as the _Normandy_ edged a few feet further from the railing. Unable to tell if it was a distance she could jump safely, she squeezed out one last burst of speed.

The railing, weakened by the heat, collapsed like warmed cheese under her foot, killing the power needed for the jump.

Alenko reacted in a way he had not reacted in years. He didn't think, he simply _did_.

Shouts from behind told Alenko the others knew they were about to lose Shepard. Before she could scream, before she began falling towards the molten surface, Alenko reached out for her, biotic aura flaring if he had caught fire. The _lift-pull_ caught Shepard, dragging her up and away from the melting rock…

...straight into the source of the _lift-pull._

-J-

Horror and realization had a moment to take hold of Shepard, a yelp of shock lodging in her throat. It was too late. She was falling.

Something caught her. The feeling of something tingling against her skin wrapping around her, stopping the fall. Looking up she registered the purple-blue mass effect field.

She ended up tackling Alenko, who tipped backwards both as a result of Shepard crashing into him, and to make sure they didn't wind up tumbling out of the bay.

Alenko now knew firsthand what it was to be hit by a truck.

Shepard, shaken but unhurt, immediately rolled to one side. Alenko might be one beefy marine, but she had armor on and he didn't. "Get us out of here!" Shepard roared around coughs and gagging breath, relieved at being alive, and grateful to Alenko for literally pulling her out of the fire.

Alenko nodded in agreement, aware only of the heat, the closing doors, and the weight of Shepard's head as it kept rocking back against his arm as she coughed, apparently too stunned by her near-death experience to sit up.

The doors closed the rest of the way with a bang as _Normandy_ rocketed away. The garage crew, and all other personal swarmed over the ground team, helping the asari to her feet, checking that nothing had breached Tali's environmental suit, or clapping Williams on the shoulder.

Shepard finally managed to pull her helmet off, scarcely aware that what was supporting her head was Alenko's arm, which he'd flung out when they'd fallen. "Thanks..." she gasped, glancing over at Alenko.

Pink-faced and sweaty, that smile made the usual thoughts that came after any panicky use of biotics vanish. It left him feeling almost…hero-like. "No problem…"

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" It couldn't be comfortable to have a fully-armored marine land on you, though Shepard could appreciate having a softer place to land than the floor, now was not the time to think about that.

"Nah…ever notice how comfy this floor actually is?" Alenko couldn't stop the stupid words, though after a situation like that, they sounded quite logical.

Shepard nodded agreement, going back to business. She could freak out later, in private, if she needed to. "Kid? You okay?" And yet...she was happy to lie like a turtle on its back for a few more moments.

Liara nodded, knowing Shepard could not see her. "I am…not hurt, Commander." She could not believe they had just done that! Jumping from an exploding volcano into a spaceship…

"Tali? Williams?" Shepard craned her neck.

Williams made a scornful noise as she crossed her arms. "Takes more than a volcano, Skipper."

"I'm all right," Tali rasped, then added, "but if you voided the warranty on my environmental suit, you're flipping for a new one."

"Got a little warm back there, huh?" Alenko asked with a nervous chuckle as Shepard sat up.

Nervous titters from the assembly grew to shocked giggles. The only ones not joining in were Liara and Wrex. Wrex snorted, returning to his seat on the crates.

Humans were so strange, Liara found herself thinking. Was this really the time to giggle?

"I so owe you a beer," Shepard murmured to Alenko, patting his shoulder as she got to her feet.


	63. Canary

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sat in the mess with coffee in one hand, the after-action report for Therum on a datapad in the other. She was still not satisfied with it; the Council would never buy that destroying those ruins had been necessary.

"Shepard." Wrex grunted as he passed.

"Wrex." She did not even look up from the datapad. What was the point of writing these silly things? She knew that, the instant she set foot on the Citadel, she would be up on the carpet.

The doors of the elevator hissed, and someone—a male someone—gasped 'whoa!' in surprise as they found Wrex on the other side of the doors.

Too funny, Shepard though as she sipped her coffee. Well, the colony couldn't hope for better response time than the _Normandy_ was giving. She hoped it was going to be enough.

"Commander?" Engineering Chief Adams looked down at the top of the Commander's head as she frowned at her datapad.

"Adams?" Shepard looked up, teal eyes flashing. "At ease," she waved, almost before identifying him.

Adams relaxed slightly. "Do you have a moment, Commander?"

"Absolutely. I think I've read this thing six times now," she cast the datapad aside carelessly, taking a sip of her coffee as Adams sat down. "What's on your mind?"

Adams had to think about that for a moment, as too many answers came flooding through his brain all at once. He understood the usefulness of the asari. He even understood the krogan and the turian. He'd told the krogan to stay out of engineering with that 'I'm tougher than you are' attitude, accompanied by a threat to put him through the drive core.

The krogan laughed, but he had also stayed clear of engineering after that.

He'd not originally—extremely early on—considered the use of the quarian, though everyone on the ship understood her predicament. And everyone had assumed that predicament was the reason for her presence aboard the _Normandy_.

No longer.

"It's about that quarian, Tali," Adams began, choosing his words carefully.

Shepard set her mug down with a clunk, her brows furrowing.

"She's been spending all her time down in main engineering," Adams nodded. And what a blessing that was, too. It was like she was born…well, yes. That explained it: it was like she was born around ships. If some vessels liked having cats aboard, or old mining excavations liked having canaries, he would have loved to have a couple quarian engineers on every vessel in the fleet.

Think…_cooperative venture_.

"ZIf she's bothering you, I'll tell her to steer clear," Shepard offered.

The words struck Adams liked a blow to the face. So much so that he gaped at Shepard as though she were mad, or had suddenly sprouted extra arms.

She arched her eyebrows at his expression. "Adams?"

"No! Don't do that…are you nuts?" he added in a disbelieving undertone Shepard was clearly not meant to hear. "She's great. Smarter than half my guys…makes them look like a bunch of boneheads…" he shook his head. He wouldn't have believed anyone could do that, since his guys were some of the best. Unfortunately for them, Tali's raw talent for this sort of thing was _astounding. _"Give her a month and she'll know our engines better than _I_ do."

Shepard smiled. "I _thought_ she'd be useful." She had not expected that use to end up in engineering, but she was not wholly shocked. She was watching the nonhumans falling in with small groups in the crew. Except Wrex, who liked to disassociate himself from people, and Liara who was still painfully shy.

Shepard was not sure what to do about that, but her eyes still ached when she thought of the asari poking around in her head.

"That's why I'm here…" Adams frowned, then leaned forward on the table, looking almost conspiratorial. "I know _Normandy _is…a special ship. But I'm not the sort to turn away helping hands…even if she has only got three fingers." He held up one hand in imitation of a quarians.

"Well, it's not like they're restricted to any one deck." Shepard pointed out, then she sighed. "If you want her in engineering, I don't have a problem. But…let's keep it on the down-low, huh?"

"Yeah…" He had already considered and reconsidered this, and gone with his original excuse: this was a Spectre vessel, and the Spectre wanted it to run smoothly. No idle hands. "You won't regret this, Commander." Adams rose, saluted, and strode off, a man on a mission.

-J-

Back in engineering, he found Morse trying to explain something to Tali. Trying, because Tali was holding up the lecture by grilling him over the finer points of some previous topic. Morse gave a sigh of relief when Adams walked back in. And people thought humans asked too many 'why' questions. The quarian's desire to understand technical aspects was exhausting to the person who had to explain it.

Adams took over, to Morse's relief. As he lectured, Tali nodded, her eyes gleaming beneath her tinted visor. Adams decided not to say anything about the conversation he'd had with Shepard. He'd simply invite Tali to come back tomorrow, as he always did. And the next day. And the day after that—as long as Shepard didn't want her on the ground team.

Eventually habit would establish itself, and people tended to accept force of habit fairly readily on a spaceship. Psychologists said it had something to do with so few points with which to orient oneself as to _where_ you were, that the mind filled in gaps with _something normal._ She did not _have_ to show up at the start of the shift. He did not _have_ to involve her in the happenings of engineering.

But she would. And he would. After awhile, it would feel strange if she wasn't there.

A canary in a mineshaft, piping cheerfully for the ones who moved in the dark, ensuring all was well.

But this canary would have a better life expectancy.


	64. Razzle Dazzle

*The title of this one is a reference to a song from _Chicago. _

-J-

_As soon as Shepard saw that face in its fresco of makeup, she wanted to walk back into the elevator and head out on the most dangerous mission that she could find. It be the safer option. _

Khalisa al-Jilani (Shepard usually referred to the reporter as 'that al-Jilani woman') of Westerlund News and her little camerabot squarely blocked the passage between the docking bay elevator and the elevator that would take her up to the Presidium.

Udina wanted a report _right now_; doubtless he actually read the after action reports and wanted to yell at her for melting a major Prothean ruin. He probably was also thinking Liara might make a valuable hostage—the Council probably had that line of though as well. Shepard was still shoving the last of the plates onto her ironclad excuse for _not_ turning the kid over.

They would need someone with Prothean knowledge sooner or later.

But that al-Jilani woman's presence left Shepard unsure what was worse: dealing with this aspect of the media or dealing with Udina. With Udina, she had an ally in the form of Capt. Anderson; with al-Jilani it was a diplomatic quickstep to be edited later to suit that woman's mood.

And it was no secret that that al-Jilani woman did not like the Alliance military, or its soldiers, or anyone, really. No news sold like bad news and smear campaigns, and that al-Jilani woman was good at both.

Shepard hated dealing with the press, but she hated the idea of dealing with this woman even more.

"Commander Shepard? Commander Shepard!"

"Yes?" She made a beeline towards the reporter, pulling on her game face. She had little choice: refusing to talk to al-Jilani was almost as bad as anything the reporter could do herself.

"Khalisa bint—"

"I'm quite familiar with who you are." Her tone implied it was not in a good way. It occurred to Shepard that maybe the reason there were so many unpleasant person aboard this station was because the individual's homeworld simply did not _want _them around.

"…good. I was wondering if you might have time for a quick interview—let the public get their first _really_ good look at you." The smile was insincere. So would the crocodile smile at its next meal.

The implications of 'first _really good_ look' was not lost on Shepard. "Understand that there may be topics upon which I cannot comment." There it was: Hackett was either going to breathe a sigh of relief or forbid her (under threat of court martial) to talk to the press ever again while he ran damage control.

"I'm sure our _viewers_ will understand."

Shepard braced for the sudden bright light, which obscured everything behind it.

No chance of reading that al-Jilani woman's face or posture, then. No chance, then, of gauging whether she got under that woman's skin, or played into her hands.

Only after al-Jilani opened with a polite question about being the first human Spectre did Shepard realize her true position. She was not used to thinking about the Council as part of her day-to-day life, but the question drove it home: if she did not tapdance faster, she was going piss _someone _off, be it Udina (she did not particularly care), Hackett (who had a lot of pull in her life), Anderson (who would commiserate) or the Council…and they were an unknown variable.

-J-

Khalisa bint Sinan al-Jilani knew Shepard had a negative opinion of her. She also knew she had caught that little Alliance/Citadel puppet flatfooted. Ambushes still worked wonders. The problem was that she had misjudged the soldier. It was Udina who sent her assessment of Shepard veering in the wrong direction: the overbearing, useful media monkey yanked control of a conversation to himself whenever he could. He was voluble and often overly emotional about what he wanted.

Like a spoiled child.

However in this case even a person with only slight people skills and a smidgen of politic-speak could have some across as an extremely competent, capable diplomat.

Udina had successfully screened Shepard's cunning and deft maneuvering, his over-the-top demands and accusations paving the way for a more moderated voice.

In such a situation anyone with a little patience could look more competent than she really was.

It was not so in Shepard's case Udina was a blind; she was every bit as deft as she seemed, every bit as deviously cunning, more so, even. Yet she, Khalisa, like most people had fallen for it, and underestimated Shepard, misread the polite almost smug enjoyment of telling the press 'I can't talk about it' for a lack of subtlety.

It was then that she knew if she wanted to make a better name for herself, this hero would have to go.

-J-

Shepard had, by this time, settled down a great deal, listening as that al-Jilani woman's voice became brittle, irritable, as her questions became more hostile and human-centric. Shepard knew she would win no friends in Terra Firma, but the majority of moderates would probably be happy.

She never liked extremist organizations; the loss of their support was, to her mind, a negligible thing. They were to be classified as dangerous, but she would not lose sleep over not having their approval. Yet doubt still lurked in her mind, since she could not see what any onlookers might be thinking, for many had stopped to watch the interview.

Finally the bright light went off and the heat vanished leaving the Citadel air feeling colder than it actually was.

"Thank you, Commander."

Shepard smiled indulgently. "You're very welcome." The look al-Jilani flashed her was almost homicidal; apparently the interview went better than Shepard initially hoped.

But her self-assured smile faded as al-Jilani stalked away. Here was hoping that even an editing suite could not change the intent of throwing pleasant, 'let's all play nicely together' crap into something awful. She hated paying lip service, but she was not nearly as expansive in her views as her words suggested.


	65. Test

Beta-read by Saberlin.

…because I always wondered if there was some form of equipment accountability with the Spectres. That's pretty high-grade stuff walking out of Requisitions. ^_-

-J-

To: Spectre Requisitions Agent Livion Urvyle, C-Sec Academy, the Citadel,

From: Commander J. Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

Please find enclosed the requested Spectre requisitions feedback forms (Form-SGR-2390) from Spectre J. Shepard and support crew (T. Zorah nar Rayya, Gunnery Chief A. Williams). Please also find one (1) small plastic bag containing two (2) slugs, which are souvenirs from the last mission.

All equipment is still functioning and in excellent order, despite the nature of the last mission. On a similar note, all personnel are _also_ in excellent order despite the exceedingly hostile environment of the last mission, thanks mostly to said gear. If the manufacturers are looking for endorsements, the appended equipment has mine, for keeping my team in one piece. If they want real-life, on-the-extranet endorsements…

…no.

Query: To whom would I speak about getting replacement gear, should any of this fail, and the test-user choose to invest in a privately owned duplicate? It to you Requisitions or do I need to find a company representative and negotiate through them? I'm not sure some of this stuff is on the public market

Thank you for your support, and the fantastic equipment,

Commander J. Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

PS: Thanks Livion, these are really great picks. Garrus hasn't even _used_ the thing yet and he won't hardly put that crazy sniper rifle of his away.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Rozenkov Materials 

Recipient: A. Williams

Item: Scorpion Armor (H-M), Spectre Grade

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 4/5 (It fits funny.)

Comments: For the most part, you've got a real kickass piece of equipment, here. You might want to fix the fit for a _normal_-figured human, though. It's a little too roomy in a few places, even if it's not chafing (I told the skipper it wouldn't need cornstarch at the neck and what do you know? I was right. I'd get one of these on my credits for that alone.). What's the actual heat-safety index on this thing, anyway? The weight isn't what I'm used to, for medium weight armor, but when you're running for your life, that's not a bad thing. I'm still picking slugs out of the plates – but I don't even have bruises to show for them. The shield units work great, and take a real beating before they start to wind down (hence the slugs in the plates).

Did you people want the slugs I dug out? You know, to get an idea of these plates' stopping power? I'll leave them with the Skipper, just in case.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Haliat Armory

Recipient: J. Shepard

Item: Tornado (Shotgun), Spectre Grade

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 4/5

Comments: It's not a bad shotgun. Better than the standard issue stuff _and_ the one I usually use. I may never go back to the old one. It _does _however, require a certain amount of clever modding to make it functional in a live-fire situation. The amount of damage inflicted per shot and the mid-range accuracy make up for the low tolerance for overheating. The thing kicks a little hard. It's not for someone who's not used to it; fortunately I'm not the only one feeling it. 'Charlie' can vouch for that. Needs additional redesign for high-temperature climates, or mods for heat reduction.

Love the lightweight design – I need to find out if it'll handle emergency hand-to hand. You know – 'number nine to the face'? I'd hate to find out too late that it's not tough enough or that.

…Oh, yeah, and lose the bayonet fixture. No one uses them anymore. If you want to convert it to a scope rail…well, I'd prefer a way to mount a light to it, but that's your decision. Nice piece of gear.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Armali Council

Recipient: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Item: Nexus (Omni-tool), Spectre Grade

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments: It's hard to believe this is mid-range in your line of omni-tools! The display images are so clear! I've never used better…though, I think that it's a little heavy; it knocks my aim off. Perhaps a thinner unit? It doesn't detract from the overall usability, but sometimes you _do_ need to be able to _aim_ a shotgun. Also, I would think about something to stop…ah, enemy _jamming _a little more efficiently. It would make it easier to _not_ walk into an ambush.

…What's the price range on these, anyway, if they were on the open market? Do you give a bulk discount?

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Armali Council

Recipient: Lt. Kaidan M. Alenko

Item: Prodigy (Amp)

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 3/5 (Testing incomplete)

Comments: Definitely a great amp – the packaging wasn't kidding when it refers to the manufacturers as 'artisans' – but it requires some actual field testing before I weigh in on it. I can say, however, it takes some of the guesswork out of handling live cargo. The low profile it another plus, probably won't be in the way when I'm wearing a helmet. Only complaint is, it sticks a little when I've got to take it out. Maybe it's a 'new amp' thing – but you might want to look into it. Looking forward to finishing this form, once field tests are complete.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer:

Recipient: Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Item: Tactical Knife

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments: I don't even know who manufactured this; it was stuck in a box that looked like Requisitions had it forever. Light in weight, good quality – you can tell just by touching it. Shepard wants an accounting of everything we got from Spectre Requisitions, so here you are. Fits in a leg unit just fine, and doesn't drag the sheath out of position. I swear, if I wasn't already in love with the Commander's ship (and having an affair with my omni-tool) this knife would be the one piece of indispensible equipment.

I can't wait to find something to actually try it on.

-J-


	66. Intimidation

Author's Note:

The concept of 'drift' will be mentioned off an on from here on in, so I want to explain the concept. I use it to account for the unusually perceptive nature of some of the asari we see (Sha'ira, and the Rachni Queen's messenger).

Drift refers to the ambient emotions around an individual (which can be natural or manufactured, depending on the situation and if the subject is aware that asari _can _read drift. Most are not.) Catching drift is a passive ability. They can catch a person's emotional 'drift' if they are standing close to that individual. Call it passive empathy, it is _not_ telepathy, it is not generally used as a lie detection method (though Justicars like Samara have probably learned to use it in that capacity); they just get the general sense of emotional state, no actual thoughts. The really perceptive ones can catch aura, but for most it's like hearing background noise, which they can tune out.

Also, major apologies to my awesome beta, Saberlin, who really did look this over and hammer out my various typos and inconsistencies!

-J-

Liara sat quietly in the back of the medbay. Although clean, and now dressed in a slightly too large Alliance uniform—for want of anything else—she was not mingling with the crew. The medbay doors outside hissed.

"How is she?" Shepard's voice asked Dr. Chakwas quietly, as if she expected to find Liara sleeping.

"A little shell shocked, I think," Dr. Chakwas answered. "That was a very close escape you all had on Therum, and most people are not used to dealing with those."

"Is she awake? If not, I'll wait. Talk to her later." Shepard finished the sentence hurriedly, as if Dr. Chakwas had made to go check.

"She should be up – she was when I last checked. But that was half an hour ago. I think…I think she feels a little out of place."

Liara slipped off the counter upon which she was sitting and padded over in sock feet to peer around the door frame. Shepard, dressed in the same blue fatigues as everyone else – barring the doctor – was leaning against one of the examination tables, ankles and arms crossed.

"Yeah, I 'll bet," Shepard nodded. "She eaten?"

"No, I don't think so. But if she's suffering exhaustion, I'm sure she'll want to, as soon as she wakes up."

"And we don't need to worry about dietary stuff, like for Garrus and Tali?"

"You don't know your xenobiology, do you?" Dr. Chakwas chuckled.

"Just enough to know where to shoot stuff." Shepard shrugged.

Liara cleared her throat, and stepped into the doorway.

"Hey. How're you feeling?" Shepard asked, pushing herself off the examination table.

"I am not hurt," Liara answered quietly. "I do not think your crew cares for me wearing their uniform." She looked down at the uniform, stripped of the harness and rank tags the soldiers sported.

"Don't worry about it. It's…they know you don't have a lot of choice." Shepard shrugged.

"What happens now?" She was not sure Shepard would answer the question. Military operations were as foreign to Liara as the topography of Earth.

"I've got to speak political for a couple hours," Shepard responded, her drift shivering like pins and needles for a moment. "Have you eaten?"

"Not yet…I suppose I'm still a little shaken up, as the good doctor said." Liara glanced Dr. Chakwas, who seemed to be giving the conversation absolutely no attention. "Please, do not concern yourself, Commander."

"I'm the CO on this ship. It's part of my job. Alenko was right. You do need to take care of yourself, but if you don't want to join the general population, I understand."

"Thank you, Commander." Liara inclined her head.

"I've got to go 'explain myself' to Udina." The words were at odds with the 'keep a friendly eye on the kid' look Shepard passed Dr. Chakwas.

"What manner of person is the Commander?" Liara finally asked, feeling gentle concern in the Dr. Chakwas' drift.

"A good one; at least, she's a good officer. She genuinely cares for the people under her command." Dr. Chakwas answered.

Liara looked away from the doctor. "They know I am Benezia's daughter. They think I will be just like her." Despite the concern shown while the surface of Therum boiled and bubbled beneath them, the ship's aura changed once the danger passed. The suspicion they worked to keep off their faces but could not keep out of their drift during the one trip she made outside the medbay drove her back to her refuge in moments.

Dr. Chakwas sighed. "Can you blame them? But they trust the Commander, and she will vouch for you."

Liara did not say any of what she thought. Surely, the Commander was someone to be admired. Liara could tell the crew, those whom she had seen so far, respected the Commander enough to accept her decisions without any outright objections.

"My presence puts her in an uncomfortable position." The fact suffused Shepard's drift.

"The Commander is a Spectre, the first human to become one. She is in an uncomfortable position with or without your presence," the doctor assured.

Liara knew this, having scanned the extranet at first opportunity to investigate her current protector. She wished she had not, and worked not to gape at a real live hero. Someone with remarkable mental fortitude…Liara suspected the mental fortitude came from a shadowed past.

It sounded like something from a story, or many stories, she had read as a child.

Then there was the fact that the Commander was touched by Prothean technology in a way Liara had never encountered. That in itself was fascinating.

"Don't worry about the Commander's difficulties. She wants you here; she'll find a way to make it happen."

At last Liara finally closed in on what caused her more discomfort than the crew's hostility. She avoided people for a reason. To suddenly find herself rescued and offered sanctuary by some sort of intergalactic cavalier hero-type…it was intimidating. "Do you know her well?"

"It's my first tour with her. Really, if you're feeling this chatty, you should eat something. You can bring it back in here, if you'd like."

"Thank you, doctor…" She _had_ skipped breakfast altogether, mostly because of the worried knot in her stomach. As they neared the Citadel, her fears painted a picture of being taken off the _Normandy_ in chains. "…but I am not…"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll go with you."

Tali and Alenko sat with their backs to the medbay, facing Williams.

Alenko shifted in his seat when Williams nodded in the direction of the asari and the doctor. He waved, his drift pleasant to perceive, returning almost immediately to the conversation at hand.

Liara considered asking if she might join the table, but decided not to intrude. Silently, she retreated to the safety of the medbay, carrying her bowl of noodles.

"Is it really that bad, being on a human ship?" Dr. Chakwas asked kindly.

Liara considered, weighing her experiences as objectively as she could. "It is not _bad_. Only…intimidating."


	67. A Rock and a Hard Place

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The full impact of her position in the galaxy hit Shepard the first time she stood on the bridge of the _Normandy_, taking orders from Admiral Hackett.

She had time to puzzle over it as she walked to her meeting with the ever-odious Udina.

It was so obvious that she wondered how she ever downplayed it. Or maybe this was not so surprising, seeing as she had so much else on her plate.

Since she was in the neighborhood—in the vicinity of the Exodus Cluster's mass relay—she could and _should_ turn her expertise to the benefit of the Alliance. Her employers, who were—as he subtly reminded her—so kindly letting her play with their stealth ship, and run quietly amok, triggering seismic events and chasing rogue Spectres.

All the fun things.

What could she say to that, except that she would take on the mission? He had a point.

The mission: a VI on a lunar training base usually used in live fire drills had gone crazy. It had killed seventeen marines before anyone realized there was a problem. It was also not responding to shutdown commands, killcodes, or anything else—and probably _would not_ respond to anything but someone blowing out its terminals the old-fashioned way.

She shivered: she hated on a moon, particularly when the sensation was she would 'fall up' into the planet.

But, as Hackett quickly pointed out—correctly interpreting Shepard's skeptical silence—it was _not_ self aware, it was _just_ a VI. A heavily armed, fairly malignant malfunctioning data repository. Not like the geth, so it should be easy.

Right.

Compounding the problem, he had wanted a humans-only ground crew. This was, after all, an Alliance facility, and no one wanted this lapse of control getting out. Which made her wonder what the families would be told, when flags and letters of condolence and gratitude went out.

Which was a pity, she thought acidly, wondering where all this sudden cynicism was coming from, as Wrex would have been her choice for this mission. He could wreak havoc on the machines, and all she would have needed to do was stay out of his way. Let him blow off some steam.

Those were the cited reasons for the assignment.

The _real_ reason for that call was a little more subtle, but still glaringly obvious. The Alliance wanted to remind her—in case she had somehow forgotten, after settling into the new role—that Spectre or not, the Alliance owned her until her next opportunity to reenlist – in another five years, give or take. She had made a commitment, like all marines, and the Spectres would just have to share her with the entity that still had her signature on file.

It was a politically sound move. Of _course_ she wasn't put in as a candidate as a reward for some outstanding achievement. They might say she was, but everyone involved in that conversation knew better.

Hackett's parting words, upon her acceptance of the mission, still rang in her ears. _You're a Spectre, but you're also the best we have, you're human, and right now the Alliance needs you. _

Of course she would never be let off the Alliance's leash. She was just given a longer leash than most; they counted on her policing herself, and acting with conduct befitting an officer as set up by the Alliance Code of Military Justice.

It explained further why it was her with the Spectre status and not Rogers. This made her smirk.

Shepard frowned at the thought _that _officer, before reminding herself that the Council (and less importantly, Udina) had the right to expect justifications for herself and her actions. _That _was something which would dog her for the rest of this mission, possibly the rest of her career as a Spectre.

However long _that _lasted.

The mission was a better success—logistically speaking—than Therum. Even without Wrex, Alenko had technical skills, and Williams could provide suppressing fire. It really was just like shooting geth, only the drones were far less intelligent. The best that could be said was that the detour gave Udina a few more days to cool off. Maybe the tongue-lashing she'd have to endure would not be so bad.

She doubted the Council would cool off: she was not a real Spectre. She could not get away with the same grade of destruction and disorder a _real _Spectre could. She capped that thought. She had no right to expect the Council (or anyone else) to _give _her _anything_. If she wanted anything past the necessities, she would have to fight for it.

As per usual, come to think of it.

At least Admiral Hackett was a smart man. He had not, at any point, told her to spare the facility as much as possible. He simply wanted her to quell the problem. It spoke loudly of why she respected him. The credits needed to repair the facility were of less consequence than the credits needed to make an attempt to duplicate Shepard or any of her team members.

And since that sort of resuscitation was possible only in sci fi-vids, it was better not to burden someone going into a dangerous situation with pesky details, like how many credits each bot cost.

No. The _real _reason she was still thinking about this was that it somehow caught her flat-footed, when the Alliance actually _started_ making requests. She _knew _they would do it eventually…but it was still a bit of a jolt when they did.

At least she did not feel as if the Alliance was a yoke across her shoulders. In fact, part of her felt bolstered that she still—sort of—belonged to it. It was her version of family, after all, though she never specifically assigned roles. The one thing that was familiar and unchanging.

She stopped outside Udina's door, pushing personal considerations down deep, the better to keep her temper and conduct herself like the professional she was.

-J-

AN: Sometimes a walk really does put things in perspective.


	68. Sea Stories

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus found his way down to one of the half dozen popular hangouts for off-duty C-Sec officers. Down in the Wards—and not the sort of place his father would frequent—Phazed was a much cheaper, lower class place than Flux. It was also full of friends and former coworkers, which explained why Garrus found himself sitting at a table amidst a cluster of familiar faces, most of them human, all of them regarding him with a sort of contained enthusiasm.

"Well? What's it like?" Eddie Lang demanded.

"What's what like?" Garrus asked innocently, glad that humans tended to have trouble reading turian expressions.

"Running with a Spectre!" Eddie responded reprovingly, as the other two turians at the table snickered. They could see Garrus' grin for what it was.

Garrus considered. "Well...what have you heard about her?" He asked

Eddie shrugged, then answered after exchanging looks with two of the others. "Just what everyone knows. She's a survivor. I was on Mindoir when she saved Elysium, she kicked ass! Got a Star of Terra out of it." The Star meant less to Eddie than to the Alliance soldiers, but Garrus understood why. The differences in uniforms meant different perceptions of awarded honors.

"Kinda hot too," Davis added thoughtfully.

"Come, on, Davis," Lang gave him a disgusted look. "She's out there saving the galaxy, and all you can think about is what her ass looks like when she's armored up?"

Davis shrugged. "Well, now we all know _you've_ though about it."

"Davis, if you don't stop that shit," Garrus frowned, "I'm going to pop you on the head." He meant it, too. It was one thing to compliment Shepard as being an attractive female—not that he had an opinion on that, he wasn't into humans that way. It was quite another to refer to her as though she were one of the employees at Chora's Den.

That was insulting to _him_, as part of her crew.

Davis colored under Garrus' stern tone, and the way the turian eyed him beadily.

"She's out of your league anyway," Garrus twisted the dagger. "So, until _you _can match or top Elysium, watch your mouth. She'll make you do push-ups one armed until she gets tired of watching, if she hears that sort of talk."

Davis believed Garrus. "Dude! I just said she was hot, Eddie's the one who…." Davis quelled, giving Lang a dark look.

Eddie snorted, before taking a sip of his beer, letting Davis dig his own grave. Davis ought to know by now turians that had a very hierarchical view of everything, and that tended to cause their humor to run rather short at times.

"So, while Davis swallows his tongue, what's it like?" Cryvus asked, his mandibles waving as he leaned on the table.

Davis colored further, but stopped sputtering fragmented excuses.

"It's…intense." Garrus shook his head. "I'm…not at liberty to discuss specifics, of course," he loved the way that sounded, "but just working as part of the support crew is way better than life at C-Sec. No offense," Garrus waved.

"Intense in what _way_?" Cryvus asked.

Garrus sighed, considering. "Well, the missions start out all right…but by the end, when the teams' ready to come back aboard the ship…there's explosions, and fires, and smoke, and dust. and shit all in the air…and you're waiting for someone to yell 'cut'—'cause it looks like something right out of the vids…"

Lang and Davis gaped.

"You know how Spectres are: best gear, best transportation, best crew. It works like a well-oiled machine. No casualties. Not even a scratch on the ground team." So far Garrus had kept the exaggeration to a minimum, but he knew, deep down, by late tonight the stories would have evolved into epic tales of derring-do.

"You didn't go." Davis noted.

"_I_ was working support, which, if you'll listen to her is just as important. Otherwise, who's there to pull the ground teams' boots out of the fire?" Garrus shrugged, as Cryvus nodded.

"Play your strengths. She probably needed to negotiate…and we all know how good you are at _that_," Cryvus elbowed Garrus.

It was Garrus' turn to make faces of indignation. "I doubt there was anything down there to negotiate _with_—unless you mean 'negotiation with live fire'."

"Where were you?" Davis asked.

Garrus shrugged. "Out in the Traverse—come on, Davis, I told you I can't tell you everything."

"I'm not asking you to tell us _everything_; I'm asking you to tell us _something_." Davis gestured with his beer. "So far you're just paraphrasing the movie I saw the other night."

"Well, I guess that means there's something to the glamour associates with Spectres," Garrus returned smoothly. Yes, it all sounded very glamorous in retrospect. But the smoky, overheated sweaty truth was probably less so for the ground team. It was tough watching them make that last spring and jump to avoid drowning in molten sulfur. Too bad he had to keep those particular details to himself. Still, he enjoyed the attention. "All I know is that if Pallin thought _I_ was good at damaging property and personnel, she's got it down to an _art_."

"And the crew doesn't give you a hard time?" Cryvus asked dubiously.

"What? No." Just Williams, but she was only _part_ of the crew, and kept her opinions pretty well to herself these days. "The whole thing is one big cooperative venture."

Garrus sipped his drink, the cheap stuff he liked while at Phazed. It was easier to swap sea stories when not using names, or specific places. Never sharing the sort of things he knew he was supposed to keep secret…but there was plenty of non-sensitive information to share.

Garrus' intention to spread the word that Shepard was a _good_ Spectre might have been good. Someone who appreciated PR might have encouraged it.

But if Shepard had heard the stories bandied about, or heard them growing like well-watered weeds, she would have put an immediate stop to them.


	69. Human Tribal Dances

_Beta-read by Saberlin. _

-J-

The music of Flux pounded against Shepard's sinuses, leaving her with the distinct impression that if she ever wound up with a cold, this would be the place to some to have the amassed sinus sludge shaken loose. Flux was exactly the sort of place O'Conner would love: loud, boisterous, with a dedicated dance floor. Leaning heavily on her elbows, for once Shepard did not find it necessary to fiddle with her omni-tool.

-J-

Alenko cradled his beer, the very one Shepard promised after saving her...after the events of Therum. The sound pounding against his sinuses—he noted Shepard picked a table as far away form the speakers as possible—threatened a migraine later, but weighing the benefits of sticking around to going back to the ship...

...this was the much, much better option.

-J-

Shepard tapped her bottle of Astro-Fizz lightly on the table in time with the music, watching the dance floor with a surprised smirk plastered across her features. The dance floor was currently being patronized by Ashley Williams, who looked as though she were having the time of her life. Her orange margarita stood sweating and melting disconsolately at her empty place.

With the crew officially on a three day pass, why waste the opportunity to have a little fun?

Neither Williams nor Alenko understood Shepard's sudden chuckle at the comment, but Alenko –predictably, Williams thought—did not question it. Williams did not let the sense that she amused Shepard or the fact that neither Shepard nor Alenko would get up and dance, bother her. This was supposed to be a fun outing, anyway.

Which had made Shepard smile all the more when the sentiment was voiced.

-J-

Why was it, Shepard mused, that Astro-Fizz tasted so much better in deep space? This bottled cola was the exact same as her stash on the _Normandy_, so why did this stuff taste _weird_?

-J-

Alenko took to watching Shepard discreetly; it easier to do when she was watching the rest of the room. After a day full of dealing with people who weren't in the best of moods, he expected her to want to sit and mull over the idiocy of bureaucrats and the brass, not take in the experience of a club on the Citadel with a couple Alliance buddies. That had a nice ring to it, now that the beer was making him thoughtful. Not that it was particularly strong stuff. Three-day pass or not, he didn't want anything messing with his aim, or his biotics. Not when the last trip involved bullets and shotgun shells.

Don't get paranoid, Alenko corrected himself. But better paranoid than stone dead. He took another sip of his beer, eyeing Shepard's Astro-Fizz with some curiosity. It was incongruous to his way of thinking, seeing someone like Shepard—tough as nails and to an enemy as friendly as the average krogan—sucking on a soft drink. Or maybe it wasn't, since she made a habit of defying expectations.

That was one of the fun things about her, though he stifled this thought promptly. Whether or not she was fun to be around was not a thought to have about one's CO. Still…once you got used to the bullets…

"Well, at least Williams looks like she's having fun," Shepard finally remarked, breaking Alenko's steady stream of ruminations.

"Looks that way." It certainly did.

The rest of Williams' margarita was collapsed in on itself.

"You gonna go join her?" Alenko did not stop the question quickly enough.

Shepard did not notice him mentally kicking himself. "I don't dance much. Are you?"

Alenko snorted. "No, not me." The idea of getting up on the dance floor…no. Just...no.

Shepard took another sip of her Astro-Fizz. "That's all right. We'll just be bumps on a log together."

Alenko nodded, glad Shepard simply accepted that _some people_ just didn't dance.

"You think she could get the nonhumans to do the Macarena?"

The unexpected question nearly made Alenko spit out his beer. He groaned, scrunching up his face almost comically as he tried to block the image of Garrus—or worse, of _Wrex—_doing the ages-old Macarena. "That's just _wrong_, Commander."

"I guess it is." But she was still smiling, and when she turned it on him the look made Alenko's stomach twitch. "Still…?"

"No. No, because Williams would know it'd be wrong. Some things cross species, but I don't think the Macarena is one of them. Imagine Wrex…"

-J-

"…_oh…_" Shepard winced. She had not even thought about Wrex when referring to nonhumans and what they would undoubtedly classify as 'human tribal dances'. "_You_ know the Macarena, though…right?"

Alenko sighed, unable to repress the amusement. The inanity of the conversation, and the fact they were both trying to make it sound like a serious philosophical discussion as a little too much. "Yes, I know the Macarena, that's why Wrex trying to do it is such a scary thought, and no, I'm not going to participate."

-J-

Shepard shook her head as Alenko's posture shifted, relaxing from the rigidity of moments before. He really should smile more. "Killjoy…"

Alenko shrugged, unapologetic. "So I'm told."

The remark made Shepard grin all the wider. She had found herself wearing that label for quite awhile. He had a good sense of humor for a killjoy, though Shepard did not plan to say this out loud. Looking at the tabletop, Shepard found her reflection in it.

A few moments later, Alenko tapped her arm with the back of his hand. "You've got to see this…"

Looking up Shepard's mouth fell open. "Oh my…" she trailed off, incredulously amused. Glancing over at Alenko, her smirk became wicked. "You know what that looks like…?"

"Yes, and the answer's still _no_." Alenko responded primly, despite his own grin.

"All right…that's it." Shepard set her empty bottle down, as though bracing herself, as she got to her feet.

Alenko arched his eyebrows. _No way_…

-J-

Shepard gave Alenko another wicked grin, and headed for the dance floor.

_This one's for you, O'Conner. _


	70. Integrate

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Truthfully, and much to her own surprise, Liara felt she was finally beginning to integrate with the crew. Mostly because there was absolutely no pressure from anyone to be social, or show any interest whatsoever in the doings of the crew at large. She noticed it, one day, as one might notice a bruise: it was suddenly and simply a fact. At least, fewer people's drift pulsed with suspicion and wariness.

Perhaps they were operating under the supposition that someone who spent so much time avoiding people might not make a very good assassin?

That said, Shepard usually checked in once during the day, to make sure Liara was 'still alive'. Liara could tell the Commander was joking, but the humor was lost on her. Since leaving the Citadel, however, she had started joining the Commander for meals—which meant she usually ended up joining the Chief and Lt. Alenko as well. It was an interesting thing to sit with them for breakfast.

Mealtimes were usually informal, and therefore the least likely gatherings to make her feel painfully out of her depth.

Of the three, only Alenko was a morning person by nature. Shepard was a morning person by habit, and Williams not at all. Williams tended not to talk to _anyone_ until after her second cup of coffee. Liara had discovered that any grumpiness the Chief showed before the end of that second cup should be ignored, or waved away.

That was how everyone else dealt with it.

Learning not to listen in on the auras coloring the air helped, but it was so difficult when the human mind seemed to scream their general state of being. Learning to do so was Dr. Chakwas' suggestion: get used to being around humans and learn to ignore the drift. Liara had not asked how Dr. Chakwas knew about that, but took the suggestion to heart.

More than that, it was probably a warning not to let anyone know about the asari capacity for catching general aura. She agreed: it was for the best if few, very few, regular individuals knew.

Liara also discovered the coffee the crew drank religiously and in copious amounts was absolute slop. She took one sip, and refused to finish it. She quickly got the impression this was actually rather rude, for Lt. Alenko—who provided that particular pot from his 'secret stash' looked mildly surprised when she'd nearly spat it out. Shepard had arched her eyebrows, looked at her own coffee, then sipped it with a shrug.

_Sipped it_. Not 'tossed her head back and drained it' as was Shepard's usual habit. Shep[ard also put cream in it, which defied normal convention. And while these humans were fairly flexible, at the same time they maintained certain routines from which they _did not like to deviate. _

It did not take Liara long to decide she _liked_ Lt. Alenko. He was nice, pleasant, polite and charming. His drift was usually a haze of calm—though she understood this as a thing of practice rather than nature, since stress could trigger migraines. And who needed those?

She was not sure about Williams who was civil, if not exactly friendly. Liara noticed Williams was fairly frank with everyone, so decided to try and overlook the prickliness of personality—Williams was not particularly nasty. She would not hesitate to laugh if she, Liara, tried to win a hand of poker with a pair of twos, but would barely suppress her snickers when Shepard once again displayed a lack of skill with card games. Or chide Alenko and Shepard both when their 'nerd glasses were showing'. It sounded funny, even if Liara felt the context was somewhat lost on her.

Liara did not know what to think of Shepard's assurance that she did not need 'honorary' nerd glasses. Whatever that was about, Liara understood she had nerd glasses of her own...which was utterly ridiculous, and the drift at the table had pulsed with gentle humor.

It was Shepard, though, who Liara looked up to, if that was the way to phrase it. Liara did not want to _be like_ Shepard—that involved far too much running and gunfire and adrenaline for her bookish sensibilities. But it was never dull around Shepard, even when people did not seem to be doing anything particularly exciting. From what Liara gathered, Shepard was more than a leader: she was a _hero_, and while daring rescues were not her specialty, she _did_ do them often enough.

It was thrilling to be called 'part of the team'—as Shepard insisted Liara was. Liara was grateful that, even though she _was_ part of the team, she was _not_ expected to dodge bullets, and get into as much trouble as the marines, Wrex, and Garrus. It _was_ nice to be part of the greater whole…

…and to have someone leading who understood that brains backing brawn was more efficient than brawn alone, with a couple of blocks of ammunition and thick armor.

The other nonhumans were harder to figure, seeing as their drift was more subtle, but they were fairly neutral about her presence. Wrex, however, still scared her somewhat.

But Dr. Chakwas was all right. The doctor did not mind Liara taking over part of the medbay, where Liara now worked and lived. These days, most of her time was taken up with the obsessive study of the Prothean artifact one of the survey teams had recovered—though recovered from where, Liara was not sure. Nor did she _care_, once she realized how well-preserved the artifact actually was.

It was not just any artifact, but a datadisc, as she informed Shepard, spending much of an afternoon lecturing her, Alenko, and Tali about it. To her surprise, those present remained, listening attentively.

Again, Liara found she _liked_ being the focus of this sort of attention. It was nice to speak as one who was knowledgeable, and even nicer to be recognized as someone who knew what she was talking about.


	71. Dynamics

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Lt. Alenko squinted at the console, wishing the meds would hurry up and kick in. He hated it when migraines swarmed. The best that could be said of _this_ one was that it was not stress induced; stress-induced were unarguably the worst.

The light, soft footfall approaching the helm belonged to Shepard. He knew it, by now, and wondered why she didn't simply tromp around like everyone else. Make no mistake, you could hear her coming up the aisle, but even in combat boots, she moved as though she were walking through a minefield.

"Hey Commander," Joker did not look up, his eyes fixed on his console, "Something you need?"

Alenko felt her lean on the back of his chair for balance, before her face appeared in his peripheral vision, giving him a good look at her profile. "I'm going to give you some friendly advice, and an official dispensation. Get yourself some dark glasses, Alenko. Save your eyes."

It was ridiculous the way he made himself suffer like he did—Shepard's tone suggested as much. However strict regs were everywhere but on the ships, she felt there was a decisive divide between discipline and stupidity. If he wanted to work through a migraine, she had no trouble with him doing it from behind the veil of tinted plastic.

Alenko clamped down on the automatic and wholly correct response of 'yes ma'am', remembering the last time she had given him friendly advice. It would be better to just snap to and do. It was a relief, and he fished the potentially offending item out of one of the cargo pockets in his trousers and slid them on, the tension around his eyes easing somewhat as the displays grew dim.

Dark glasses were kept on hand for the moment his shift was over.

Shepard but straightened, the pressure against the back of Alenko's chair vanishing as she ceased leaning on it. "So, Joker. How's the _Normandy_ doing? Is she everything they said she'd be?" Shepard asked, peering out of the window to the side of the helm.

A wide, self-satisfied smile seeped across Joker's features, making him look more smug than ever. "Well," Joker drawled before launching into speech, eager to praise this piece of mechanical superiority – and his own piloting skills to boot.

Alenko closed his eyes so he could roll them unobserved, rather than give a snort of amusement. It was nice of her to ask, but did she really need to?

The _Normandy_ was caught in a very bizarre and highly amusing love triangle…a multi-angle….and it made for a lot of discussion around the metaphorical water cooler. All ships shared a similar dynamic, but none he'd ever served on had one quite like this. It made sense, since the _Normandy_ was one of a kind, but still…

It started with Navigator Pressly, and everyone serving shipside knew that the navigator was like the ship's father. He loved the ship, didn't want to see anything bad happen to it, and would always be there to make sure she got from point A to point B safely and without a scratch.

And woe be unto the person who scratched the finish.

Then there was the pilot—and Alenko tuned momentarily into what Joker was saying. More 'I'm the best in the fleet' crap, so he tuned right back out. It wasn't _total_ bullshit, but that was how pilots were: when they were good, they wanted people to know they were in the best hands in the fleet.

Pilots also fit into the ship dynamic, as the cocky boyfriend with the muscle car and the leather jacket. They tended to want to show the ship a good time, which inevitably led to scratched finishes and fights with the navigator over care and caution with this piece of equipment.

The clash between the navigator wanting to run the ship within safe parameters, and the pilot's desire to see just what the ship could do made the turian placement of the CIC somewhat advantageous, since no one got caught between the pilot and the navigator when these little rows eventually broke out. All the yelling and arguing was done over the radios, leaving everyone else to snicker in response to the side of the conversation he or she could hear. If you stood in just the right place, you could hear _both_ sides of the conversation, but still avoid getting caught in the middle.

Then there was Tali, who _venerated_ the ship as the apex of interstellar travel. Alenko had also caught her inadvertently feeding Joker's ego in the first few days she was aboard. She had no way of knowing all pilots were cocky. She was also shy enough to appreciate someone else talking when she felt out of her depth.

Of course, the pilot loved attention from any quarter, and lapped it up.

It was Chief Engineer Adams who discovered that Joker was taking advantage of the impressionability of youth. He had not exploded, in imitation of Pressly when Joker (it was never Shepard's fault, she was usually dodging bullets—or so the justification went) wanted to take the _Normandy_ into hostile, _dangerous_ situations and 'play cowboy'. He merely pointed out that if Joker wanted a distracted youngster working around the drive core—which powered the much-loved Normandy...feel free to continue the fishing stories.

To which Joker had responded cheekily, 'I don't even know what that _meant_'. But he also took the hint.

Come to think of it, this made Adams some kind of weird uncle, which made Tali some sort of niece…

Alenko's brain froze up as he chuckled; a particularly sharp stab of pain streaked though his liquefying grey matter. Thinking too hard…and thinking too much lunacy. Where did all _that_ nonsense come from?

Still. The ship dynamic was definitely unusual. Unusual, but it worked.

"What's the joke?" Shepard's voice asked.

Alenko found her grinning bemusedly down at him. "Just thinking about ship dynamics. _Normandy's_ one of a kind."


	72. Mud Puddles

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

No one liked landing on uncharted worlds just to see 'what that blip onscreen is'. No one liked it, but the _Normandy's_ ground crew did it often enough to make an outsider think it was some sort of bizarre hobby, or pastime. The jungle-like equatorial band in which they found themselves was a defense for mercenaries and pirates, the likes of which they could never hope to construct on any of the barren rocks such groups seemed to prefer.

The whole planet seemed to fight the team, to the point that they abandoned the Mako in favor of walking. It was too hard to drive through the biomass. No one hated the vehicle more than as they climbed out. It finally had one redeeming feature: it had air conditioning. Leaving the cool and dry made the hot and damp outside feel all the worse.

Williams wished she had a way to wipe the sweat from her face, but armor was not good for that sort of thing. She had no doubt she would break out as she had not since she was a teenager.

Something squelched underfoot.

It had rained recently, so the ground was soft and spongy, squishing underfoot and exuding water. Add the fact that the local wildlife did not care much about humans, the place was like a display in a zoo. You never saw this crap on the recruitment posters.

…crap...

She closed her eyes with long-suffering patience.

-J-

Was it, Shepard wondered from her position at point, pushing past a particularly stubborn patch of undergrowth, really worth all the trouble? If the bunker detected was a legitimate business venture, or worse completely abandoned, she was going to throw a hissy fit as soon as she could get showered and somewhere private.

Or maybe just rake the ordeal over with Williams. Sometimes you just had to vent, and sometimes venting was a group activity.

If it was full of the scum of the galaxy…well, shooting things would go a long way to relieving her feelings.

Especially on days like today. Ugh...it was the humidity that really got to you.

-J-

Thinking about the heat made it worse. This was the conclusion that Alenko, the team's rearguard, came to as he slogged on behind the women. Unfortunately, it was impossible _not_ to think about it. By rights, steam ought to be hanging knee-deep around this 'lush jungle paradise'.

He could not remember who had made the jungle comment, which was a good thing. By now he was ready to shoot the idiot who thought roaming a jungle after a heavy rain would be a positive experience. Clearly, the individual was _not_ a ground pounder.

He could not even vent his heat-induced irascibility by calling the slug a civilian puke.

…but slug worked all right, even if it was one of those 'classically Shepard' words.

"Crap…" Alenko hissed, knowing too many more missteps would have the water seeping through the mesh. These suits were not meant to be waterproof. The ground seemed to stick to his boot for a few steps before the watery turf succeeded in clearing the mud everywhere but out of the deep tread of his boots. He would have to take a chisel to it later, or at the very least, the screwdriver they had liberated from engineering for the singular purpose of getting 'gunk' out of ground team boot treads.

They were still looking for that screwdriver, too, though Alenko happened to know there were two more of the exact same one floating around in Adams' lair. The man was like a dragon who hoarded tools instead of gold.

-J-

"What?" Shepard stopped at Alenko's chuckle, turning to face him. She was not sure whether she was glad of a stop or not. The air did seem to choke you, after awhile. She was not out of shape but she certainly felt like it. Sweat trickled down her face, making her skin crawl in the clinging heat. This was not a place to wear armor, she felt like she was wearing an oven set on 'slow roast'.

And the mosquitoes were murder. Forget possible breakouts later; with all the sweat and moisture sliding down her face, it was the mosquito bites that worried her. Her eye twitched as some unnamed bug fluttered too close. She should have worn the full helmet; from the looks of things the others shared her sentiment.

-J-

On any other day, Alenko would have blown it off as unimportant. They were marines, and should not sweat the little uncomfortable details. However, this mission, start to finish, was nothing but uncomfortable little details and those tended to compound into one uncomfortable big detail of monstrous proportions.

The hot, humid weather and too much armor had them all in a mood to do what soldiers, regardless of rank, did on a mission like this.

Stepping in another mud puddle, he complained about his surroundings.

"Commander, I don't recommend setting up a naval station here, I don't care how strategic it is." With the number of Podunk places where naval stations were set up, the sentiment was only half-joking. Yes, the place provided cover, yes, it was an inhabitable world, but the mud and mosquitoes…

…to anyone other than the team, it might make the team sound like wimps to be complaining about them. However, Alenko was sure that if the mosquitoes teamed up, they could drag off any one human and suck that unfortunate person dry in minutes.

Thank goodness for team ventures.

-J-

Shepard grinned in rueful agreement. Her feet were already wet. If he had been spared mud puddles this long, he should count himself lucky. "Agreed." Might be a nice place for other things than a naval station, though, if the mosquito population could be overcome.

-J-

Williams snorted, giving Alenko a baleful look. Mud puddles? He had no right to complain about twiddly little mud puddles, and so she spoke up without thinking in her irritability, "At least yours was _only_ mud."


	73. Glass

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Oooh…" Tali's long, drawn-out breath from the gunner's chair was accompanied by a chuckle from Wrex. An _evil_ chuckle, Alenko thought grimly, the dryness of his mouth and throat slowly easing.

Some days he loved his job. Some days he really hated it. Some days it did not pay to get out of the sleeper pod. Today was shaping up to be one of those.

First a thresher maw, now _this_. It was only half in jest that he wondered if he might not _prefer_ the thresher maw, come time to put the Mako back in the garage.

"Good to know we're all okay," Alenko shook his head slowly, glad to know his team was unhurt.

Shepard was up to her eyeballs in either Alliance assignments, Council assignments, or trying to wade through some of Saren's old files (probably _censored_), which the Council _finally _unearthed.

You'd think the whole galaxy conspired to impede Shepard and buy Saren time.

It was too much work for one person, which was why a little pressure from several angles convinced Shepard she really did _not_ need to be an 'into the flames first' leader when it came to checking out blips on the radar, or doing whatever else it was the Council or the Alliance wanted done.

It was a routine mission. Don't worry about it, he said. Good experience for Tali. He finally got her with 'why have other officers on your ground team if you don't plan to make use of them?' And then, because of her rueful expression of 'you've got me there', he added 'besides, biotics need to be walked regularly.' When she seemed only half convinced, 'so do krogan.'

Honestly, he would have preferred a more stable element on the team, like Garrus, but he just _had_ to open his mouth.

Her smile was not worth a thresher maw, but it was worth something. She didn't smile often, hence why it felt so rewarding when he _did _manage to coax one out.

Well, it was over, no one was dead.

A thresher maw on the first mission off Shepard's leash. She might just take to popping motion sickness pills so she could ride in the passenger seat while she worked—not to micromanage, but to be available to help.

The idea of her pill-popping so she could continue on with her work as carnivorous aliens attacked the Mako was hilarious.

-J-

Wrex continued chuckling from the passenger seat as Alenko set the vehicle in motion. Slow motion. "Well, you drive like a half-blind old asari on her last legs, but you know how to plot an interesting mission. Should've gone toe-to-toe with that thresher, though. On foot. Prove you've got a quad."

Wrex elbowed Alenko in the ribs. The quarian was still intimidated; she would _never _break up the harassment...

Wrex smiled a flat-toothed smile of grim satisfaction. The human needed to loosen up, have more fun getting his hands dirty. Reach into an enemy's chest cavity and pull out one of its still-beating hearts.

Shepard's _krantt_ needed help. A _whole_ lot of help.

Wrex mentally made a note: for the rest of this standard week (maybe even the rest of this whole endeavor) he would devoted time each day to riffling the biotic's feathers. Good for the biotic, good for him. Couldn't be healthy, keeping that straight face and grim attitude all the time.

-J-

Alenko _really_ wished he'd taken Garrus…

No. Wrex wanted turn all the marines on the ground team into some strange krogan-in-human-skin creatures (or joked about doing so).

Garrus was too tightly-wound. As soon as the windshield went out, the turian would have had kittens.

Wrex wasn't a stabilizing element, but he was not buddy-buddy with Garrus, and therefore would not back the turian up when things got hectic. Wrex might like hassling Alenko, but not if it meant teaming up with a turian to do it.

Wrex and Garrus shared a garage, but there might as well be titanium plate between their respective spaces.

-J-

Tali shook her head slowly. Garrus was high-handed sometimes—given the geth/quarian connection—but she suspected it wasn't malice. It was irritating, but...more naiveté than anything else. And the glass of the front windshield was not only spectacularly shattered, it bore a concave impact point, and the whole thing was laced with greenish slime, slowly eating into the metal body of the vehicle. The acid they could clean off, but getting the windshield repaired…

…this was not (to quote Alenko) something you took downtown to one of those rock-chip quick fixers.

Tali peered down out of the gun turret at the splashed windshield. She was the only one, apart from Alenko, small enough to man the gun—and while the mission was calm, she enjoyed it. Being behind the big cannon while evading a thresher maw was...

...terrifying...

...so why was she feeling so collected right now, worrying about Garrus and the Mako?

The Mako was Garrus' baby, and while the thought of Garrus, mouth agape and mandibles flared as his beady eyes widened in shock, was amusing…Tali could not shake the suspicion that Alenko was going to get an earful from Garrus.

If someone shattered the windshield on her ship (or her environmental suit—which meant assuming she survived exposure), she would have a couple things to say to the responsible party, too.

-J-

Alenko sighed. They could not just let the thresher maw acid eat through the vehicle. Makos were ugly, but expensive. "Maybe…Normandy, this is Shore Party. Requesting pickup."

-J-

Garrus watched as Alenko drove the Mako into the garage, his mandibles drumming thoughtfully against his jaw. the marine climbed out, followed by Tali and Wrex. The former two seemed ready for him to come across the garage and start chewing on them.

He paced over to the Mako, sniffed at the slime, and peered into it. Cracked glass. "I've been looking for an excuse to replace this crap glass since I first saw it. About time it gave way…"

-J-

Happy Christmas everyone!


	74. Paper Airplane

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

With most of the crew off ship, taking advantage of a minor stop in a civilian port, Joker took advantage of the privacy, sitting comfortably alone in the mess doing as little as possible. With a smirk, he finished creasing the paper beneath his fingers, picked it up and threw it. It glided for a couple meters before slamming nose-first into a wall.

Well, paper was paper, and he was used to piloting a real ship anyway.

The elevator hissed and a moment later Tali strode into the mess, spotting the downed paper construct. She crouched, picking it up and returning it to rest on the table near Joker's elbow. "Do you mind?" She motioned to one of the other chairs.

Joker shrugged. He did mind, but alone-time on a ship like the Normandy was rare enough that he could be happy—more or less—with the ten or fifteen minutes he had scraped already. "Why not? Thought everyone was gone."

Tali sat down, closing her eyes behind her visor. A late night before—blast those poker games and her inability to just walk away from them—and an early morning with Adams getting ready to leave his precious Engineering unattended for a few hours meant she was exhausted. It was not even dinner time.

"Most of them are, but Engineer Adams had a couple diagnostics left—I offered to run them." Chief Engineer seemed in a hurry to take some time off ship. She supposed even he got tired of being in engineering all day every day.

She had no desire to leave the sanctuary of the Normandy. The last trip

Tali examined Joker's paper construct, cocking her head as she did so. Even with the nose mangled, it was a clever bit of paper folding.

Joker noticed, though only because of the way her obscured green eyes were lidded, giving the impression of looking down. "You don't have paper airplanes on the Flotilla?"

Tali picked it up, examining it more closely. "We've been exiles in the Flotilla for nearly three hundred years, Joker." She gave him her attention, though she still held the airplane as though it was made of glass. "If we ever had airplanes on the homeworld, no one remembers them…and to answer your question, no. Three fingers," she held up one hand, "don't seem exactly suited to this kind of paper manipulation." Especially since no one really _used_ paper anymore.

At least, not on the Flotilla. It was hard to grow trees on a spaceship where space was at a premium. She set the airplane down again, though she still watched it thoughtfully. Humans had so many fingers it was a wonder they did not trip over them—she had seen several occasions where one or the other of the engineers _had_ seemed to trip over his own finger, with either amusing or worrying results.

Even Shepard did it from time to time. You would think five fingers would be enough to hold onto a small screwdriver, but apparently not.

Thank goodness she only had three. Or, if one wanted to be technical, two fingers and a thumb.

After a very long silence, Joker heaved a sigh, and passed her a sheet of paper. He could not believe he was doing this. Human kids learned this as soon as they started going to school. He had never considered something like paper airplanes not being a cross-species thing.

It was just not something anyone ever thought about until confronted with it. Come to think of it, he was not sure what kind of equipment any of the other species piloted before starships. Did it matter?

"Like this. Just try."

Tali watched the pilot crease the paper twice, before copying him. She could feel his mute disbelief that she was going to such lengths to make sure the crease was nice and straight, that the paper lined up exactly even.

Trust an engineer to make an academic exercise out of folding a paper airplane. "It doesn't have to be perfect."

Tali glanced up, then quickly finished what she was doing with much less precision than before. Trust a pilot to rely on sloppy construction. Thank goodness Joker was not an engineer.

"And again…"

Tali watched the two airplanes emerge, twice having to make adjustments, though she noticed that as time went on Joker was more amused and less…not 'annoyed' but it was close.

"And there it is," Joker held up his airplane demonstratively.

Tali examined hers, a dubious look on her hidden face. "So…what is the point, the purpose?"

"Are you serious?" What was it with all these eggheads? Joker lobbed his airplane, which made a neat landing on the floor. "Throw them in school, at baseball games, nail the jocks between the shoulders…the list goes on."

Tali wished she had a pen. Absently, she turned in her chair, and gave it a throw.

It promptly nosedived.

"Gently. You gotta do it gently," Joker winced.

Tali, screwing up her mouth, retrieved both airplanes, but did not sit down again. Instead she leaned on the table, and gave her crumple-nosed airplane a gentle toss…

"Oi!" A nameless engineer Tali had somehow missed seeing when she left engineering stepped on the airplane as it touched down neatly, right in his line of travel. He picked it up, eyeing Tali as Joker peered around her shoulder . "Real mature, Joker."

Joker grimaced. "It wasn't me."

"Uh huh."

"It wasn't Joker's, it was mine," Tali pointed out flatly.

Her assertion did not convince anyone. Who expected the quarians to do the paper airplane thing? It was…weird.

"I'd like it _back_, please." She got up, and took the airplane back.

Next time, Joker decided as she would have to write her name on her own airplane. Still, a lopsided grin came over his face as she picked an LZ, moved so she had a clear line of vision, and sent the airplane sailing to land nearly on the lockers outside the medbay.


	75. Expectations

Beta-read by Saberlin.

This particular chapter was tough to format, and still retain the spirit of the piece. Parts written in italics are speech, everything else will be...'stage directions', I guess.

-J-

The vidmail opened, the images captured by the recorder moving erratically, showing flashes of surroundings and a great view of the underside of someone's chin before finally perching and revealing Kaidan Alenko, looking tired and somewhat at odds with himself, in his blue BDUs and a pair of dark glasses. He gave the recorder an extra nudge, making sure he would be in frame properly once he sat back.

Then he smiled, and waved at the recorder.

_Guess who? We're in a bit of a holding pattern, and close enough to a comm buoy that we can send out our correspondences. Been awhile since I wrote home, but it's…_he shook his head. _It's been kind of weird. My new CO's a trouble magnet of the unfortunate kind—you know, stuff just seems to snowball, and that snowball arbitrarily picks someone to run over? Good thing she can run like crazy._

'_New' is probably not the right word. Usually by now I'd have things figured out, but…I dunno. I don't think she _likes _being figured—it's her prerogative. We'll see what a couple more weeks do._

_Anyway, I'm fine. The crew's really starting to gel, now things have started settling down. Routine'll do that. _

_So, to answer your questions_, he produced a datapad and leaned close to it. _Yes, I love it here on the _Normandy_. Seems like everywhere we go there's…someone with an attitude…_he did not manage to erase the implication of bullets flying and seemed to realize it because he quickly added, _but so far only one of us has had to pick slugs out of our armor, and it wasn't me. Not quite like the old cowboy vids, so don't worry. _

_Yes, we've seen some interesting places—uh, none that I'd particularly recommend as vacation spots. Believe me, _he added in an undertone, _I'll have some sea stories to tell next time I visit. _He set the datapad aside, then settled back in his chair.

_I'm afraid I can't say much about what we're doing, or even who the crew is—I know you'll understand—but what I can, I will. This'll go through the censors anyway, but I'd rather you not get a blacked out letter. _He leaned back, arms crossed. _Guess I'll start with the Commander. There was a news vid about _Normandy _awhile back—she was the one fielding the questions. _

_Yeah, she's _the _Commander Shepard, just in case they didn't make that clear. I never saw the report, so I have no idea how it ended up looking once they edited it. Anyway, she's…nice. Competent, not quite what you'd expect, really. And as you can see, she thinks I'm weird. _He jokingly tapped his glasses. Someone over his shoulder catcalled agreement with the sentiment, which only made him laugh. He did not respond to the jeer, but continued on almost ruefully. _Yeah, well, you'll know that firsthand. Comes in useful, though. _

_Then there's the Chief—she's part of the ground crew. We picked her up later on. She's all right—blunt, tough, her accuracy with a rifle is just scary. Definitely someone you want with you when you hit dirt. Ah, she's the one picking slugs out of her armor—she says she didn't even bruise though. _

_And…you know, they'll probably both want to _kill _me if I let this get out, but the way I see it, it's probably all over the Citadel _anyway_. _He cast a look over his shoulder to make absolutely sure neither of the women referenced was standing over his shoulder, or within earshot, then leaned closer to the camera.

_I didn't think _anyone _still knew the Macarena, let alone could dance it without the actual song, but Williams and Shepard managed it. 'Human tribal dances', right in the middle of an alien-friendly bar, no less. And yes, they wound up getting quite a few people to go along with them. It was something else. _

He shook his head. _I didn't know whether to laugh or what. I'm still not sure, and I've had time to think about it. They're marines—what else can I say?_

_We've got quite a few nonhumans running with us—I've never seen a more motley crew in my life. But it works, for the most part. I don't think anyone likes Wrex. But I don't think he cares, since he doesn't seem to like anyone himself. He respects the Commander, though—definitely a _healthy _choice for him to make._ Alenko shook his head, but did not elaborate. _He's a krogan, _then with another shifty glance Alenko leaned forward, _big, ugly, mean. I don't think he's as dumb as he might want people to think, but I've been wrong before._

_The food's still horrible, though it's better than at my last posting. The coffee's not—but at least it's the familiar standard issue horrible. I keep telling myself I'm going to switch to instant, but somehow…I never get around to it. Must be some kind of acquired taste. _

_You should see the mug rack out here—it's…it's really eclectic. I get the feeling the time is fast approaching where I'll be expected to ditch the standard issue mug and go with something a little more personalized. _He shook his head, as if the thought was perplexing. _I don't know—maybe it's different __on the smaller ships, but within the last couple weeks all but one of the standard issue _Normandy _mugs have found their way into storage. Plenty of standard issue mugs from other postings, though. We've got, what, the _El Alamein_, the _Agincourt, _the _Everest, _and I don't know who else_.

_Oh, hey mom? While I've got you here, where did you get that 'Tonka Tuff' bit, anyway? He looked around conspiratorially, making sure no one would overhear this time. Because there's quite a few people who warrant the description on this boat. Lots of love to you and dad_. He grinned and reached for the recorder, which cut off a moment later.


	76. A Breather

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The vidmail opened, revealing a jittering image of Ashley Williams, lit by warm, orange light. She was obviously carrying the recorder with her, instead of sitting somewhere and dictating the mail.

_All right, dear Mom, Abby, Lynn, and Sarah—sorry I'm doing mass mails, but things out here got a lot of crazy. I've only just caught a breather. I never realized how badly things could spiral out of control in such a small span of time, but at least I'm learning to expect it._

_I'm out here in the Traverse—can't say where, but the Traverse is a pretty big place. Skipper's got us hooked up to a comm buoy, so now's the time to send mail. It's also time for coffee. I swear, I heard about standard issue coffee being awful in the fleet. The rumors are rubbish: seriously, this stuff tastes fine. It's what we used back home. Ha-ha…_

The recorder turned away from her, to focus on the mug rack. _Sam says hello, _her hand selected a mug with an irritated looking cowboy on it. _And here we have Mr. Standard Issue…_she tapped a blue _Normandy _mug, _and the Commander—she's spared an epitaph, because she's got enough as it is_, the finger landed on another blue mug with _El Alamein _and part of what looked like a fox's head visible. _And our smartass pilot, _She actually picked up the mug, let the recorder capture the white words on it—'I don't drive fast, I fly low'—and put it back carefully.

_I swear, the guy thinks he's the pinnacle to the piloting world. Hell of a flier, and I can vouch for that, but _really? _I think he's taking it a bit far. You'd like him Abbs: scruffy, cocky, great sense of humor, a real rock star._ The recorder returned to catch her face as she poured coffee.

_It has been one hell of a first couple weeks. It's like a zoo in here, and I'm not exaggerating. All we need is a hanar and a pear tree, and we'll have a whole parody of that old song. Krogan, turian, quarian...oh, and the asari in the back. All on a military frigate. _

Williams exhaled as though she did not quite believe what she had just said. The picture jostled as she sat down, casting a look around whichever room she was in before readdressing herself to the recorder.

_Anyway—dad was right about space being beautiful. You know how we used to say the cold feet syndrome space-faring marines complain about was just a figment of their imagination? Well, it is, but that doesn't make it not real. I'm suffering from it, too. It's got to be psychological, because the _Normandy _is kept at a comfortable temperature, I've seen the environmental controls. _She shook her head, sipping her coffee. _Still, it's nice when there's time to just sit somewhere and watch the galaxy out a window. _

_Can't do it when we're traveling, obviously, but like now, when things are quiet... _

_It was weird for awhile, not having real ground under my feet, but I've gotten used to it pretty quickly. This is a really good crew, it's a real honor to be here. _

She lowered her voice. _I keep waiting for the cat to get out of the bag and axe to fall, but I'll live it up until then. Good thing Williams is common enough name for the CO to write it off. For now. _

_I really wish I could find a place where I could record these messages in private—but on a frigate there aren't many places like that. Not many private places to _read_, either—so no embarrassing stuff when you get back to me. I mean it. None. _

She propped the recorder on the table, leaning on her elbows, slouching comfortably. _I'll tell you what, though. I hope this class of ship gets to be fairly standard. We had this idiot Admiral call her a _boondoggle_. You can tell the guy's an armchair commando, because he had no idea how much Shepard and Alenko wanted to kick his ass. We got to hear all about it after the fact, but man—he was lucky to walk away with his head still attached to his shoulders. You never insult a marine's ship. _

_It's okay for a marine to call their own ship a boondoggle, 'cause they know it best. But it's affectionate. Like when we give crap to our pilot. The real boondoggle around here is The Vehicle—it's horrible. It's hard to drive, it's hard to shoot from it, and it's _cramped_. On the last mission, I kept waiting for the El-Tee's head to slam up against the roof. The Commander's not fond of it either._

_You know. There are _a lot _of _nerds _on this boat. Seriously. If I didn't know better, I'd think this was some kind of practical research crew—you know, omni-tool in one hand, firearm in the other? They congregate and do the geek thing en mass; it's crazy. I also never have a clue what they're talking about…_

Off-screen, someone snickered.

_Oh, sorry_, Williams gaped.

_Talking bad about us, Chief? _The female voice responded before continue without pausing for an answer. _Carry on—I'm here for the coffee. _

Williams leaned close after a span of silence. _I tell you, the Commander's got sneaky feet. I never hear her walking around—it's _creepy_. Anyway, I'd better wrap this up, or I'll end up just __yakking. I miss you guys, _she leaned away from the recorder. _Mom…_she simply grinned. _Love you. Hey, I think I found someone who can stomach—and like—that habanera stuff you made that one time…_

…_Tell Dad I said hi._

Williams turned off the recorder.

It flicked back on.

_Sar, let me know how Sadie's doing. I hope you're walking her regularly. She gets cranky if she's cooped up all the time. _

This time the recorder switched off, and stayed off.

-J-

Yosemite Sam belongs to Warner Brothers. ^_^


	77. Differences

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

The vidmail recorder switched on, revealing a huffy-looking Garrus, glaring mutinously.

_Dear dad. It feels like every member of C-Sec from Executor Pallin to Spectre Requisitions, from Eddie Lang to Jules Davis was buzzing about how _pissed _you would be when you found out I resigned to join…how was it phrased to me? The amazing human circus. Someone mentioned something like 'Wingling Brothers'—but I was not the only one on whom the humor was lost. _

_Humans. _

_I think they might have actually underestimated this crew. Oddly enough human-run circus is a far better definition of this boat than anything else. _

Garrus leaned closer to the recorder, his voice dropping. _I know how you feel about Spectres—but quite frankly, I think humanity's first is still trying to shed her scales when it comes to The Regs. I swear, half the time she sounds like she swallowed the Alliance's rule book, and the other half, I can't hear her because she's got her shotgun up to her shoulder. It's not unlike working with military personnel _anywhere_, which is disappointing to say the least. _

_I can only hope the Commander grows out of it. If she does…I may or may not let you know. _

_Those of us with homes to contact to are doing so—though I doubt I'll actually send this. I might want to give you a little more time to get used to the idea of me running with a Spectre…but then, I know you well enough to not to hold my breath. _

_If I'm going to do this, I might as well do it right, and not spend the entire letter wasting time beating on a dead hose. I think that's how the humans say it…they've got some _strange _ways of expressing themselves. Particularly Shepard, but only when she gets in a certain mood. Apparently, she grew up in a pretty backwater place, so her expressions reflect that. Supposedly. _

_Life aboard the _Normandy _is…interesting. The humans use a fairly loose form of hierarchy—with the Commander at the top and everyone else finding their niche below. Our resident krogan has already knows his place in the hierarchy—right under Shepard's boot. I swear, I didn't think a human could put a leash on and keep control of that thing, but she does it. _

_I spend a lot of time in the garage; the crew that maintains the vehicle is fairly young by human standards, so they don't mind me hanging around. And I think they're glad to have someone else's knuckles to sacrifice on the altar of working on the vehicle, because it's a real knuckle buster. No one seems to like this vehicle very much, neither the crew that maintains it, nor the people who have to drive it. _

_The humans have an inexplicable love of coffee—bad coffee if they're to be believed. And everyone—almost everyone—has a mug that is uniquely _theirs_. It's interesting to see how they adapt to living in close quarters, where the divisions between 'my space' within 'our space' occur. _

_I know you think humans talk too much. Up until now, I didn't agree with you—but hearing some of the lower-deck rumors that apparently circulate in one form or another on every voyage I'm inclined to agree. You'd never catch a turian talking about his commanding officer and various members of the crew the way humans do. _

_None of it's true, I'm sure. I'm also sure Shepard can't know half of it, or she'd organize some kind of reproving action. I've been _told _this is just 'the way it is', but I'm not sure that's the truth…and I'll admit, I don't want to ask Shepard, in case I have to be the bearer of bad news. _

_But there, I'm making the crew look bad. Odd habits and topics of conversation aside, it takes only a couple laps around the ship to realize what a good crew this really is. It's cohesive. When they all think in the same direction—which they do from the moment there's a ground team preparing to deploy to the time the ground team is safely returned to their normal duties—it's something to watch. Everyone has a job, and knows it. Even though this particular crew hasn't been together very long, you wouldn't think so once the pressure's on. I got to see this and it was like watching a team of our own people._

_As far as the ship, I can't say much. It's apparently all classified, and I'm lucky to be here at all. The Chief makes this clear, but I'd like to think she's getting used to the idea of 'aliens aboard'—her words, not mine. _

_Well, whether I send this or not, I suppose I ought to close it out properly. _Garrus shifted nervously. _Tell Mom I said 'hi'…let her know I'm going all right. The food here is terrible, but it hasn't killed me—or tried to eat me—yet. _

_Well…yeah. Bye._

With a sigh, Garrus turned the recorder off. Contacting his father was such a chore—mostly because he usually only needed to wait for his father to come within shouting distance. He _should_ be writing to his mother, but he could tell her very little, and she would worry.

"You ready to get started?" Shepard asked pleasantly, coming in and filling her coffee mug.

"Yeah, sure. Let's get to it." Garrus swallowed, his vocal cords pulled tight at the thought of hour upon hour of reading Saren's old journals—Shepard's translator would let her hear the words, but she certainly couldn't read them herself.

Garrus picked up the recorder, and followed Shepard to her office, where he began reading from yesterday's quitting point. Once settled comfortably in the chair, he set the recorder on the edge of the desk…and forgot about it.

Several hours later, Shepard found it, ran the first few seconds, turned it off quickly, and then put it in the out-going mail queue.


	78. Update

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Commander Shepard looked into the vid-mail recorder.

_Captain Anderson, I thought you might like to hear how your crew is doing._ It really was _his _crew—she was just allowed to keep an eye on it for awhile. _Things are going well. Remarkably well, considering most of us have never worked together. I've never seen a crew gel so fast._

Wrex, Tali, Liara, and Garrus were settled, and things were going extremely well—particularly since Wrex had the idea that if he could not floor Shepard, he should not risk irritating her by trying to floor someone else. Still, he liked to let his personality rasp against other people's when he could.

But this, at least, was bearable. If she did not know better, Shepard would have thought Wrex and Williams read from the same page.

As for the crew, it was unusual to have one scooped up from all across the Alliance and thrown together all at once. Usually it was just a few new rookies, or a new officer here and there. Those sorts of changes tended to settle like a house: slowly. This crew was like the fast gel compound in homemade jam—something Shepard knew about from her farmer upbringing.

_The officers are the best I've ever seen_.

It was true…more or less.

Having heard half of Adam's tirade when someone forgot the mandatory sippy lid and brought the open beverage into engineering still made her want to laugh. It was funny, to watch Adams, usually calm, cool Adams, wound up like Pressly.

And poor Pressly…Joker's antics were going to cause that poor man to stroke out.

_Pressly is a fantastic XO. He worries a bit much, though—especially with Joker flying. Captain, the 'conversations' between those two could make them famous as a comedy duo within the Alliance. Maybe in the civilian world, too._

Oh yes, Pressly and Joker were still at it, and probably would be at it for the rest of the trip, if not for the rest of their stint together. As long as it did not interfere with the smooth operations of the _Normandy_, Shepard saw no reason to tell them to lay off. Besides, nearly everyone got the recap of Joker vs. Pressly around the water cooler. Goodness knew she, Alenko, and Williams tended to get a laugh over it each evening.

_The Normandy's not scratched—badly_. Why did she feel like a teenager reassuring her dad the family car was not wrecked…just scuffed.

_I've never worked with a biotic before, but the Lieutenant deserves a gold star on his record. He's a smart guy, he's going places._ This at least was unvarnished truth. Alenko _did_ deserve a gold star on his record—especially after having pulled her boots out of the fire on Therum. She appreciated the reliability he presented. Rock-steady officers of that caliber did not seem to come along often—at least, not to her team.

_Williams has integrated well. She has taken over the master-at-arms' duties until further notice. I don't think we'll need further notice, though. People like to manage their own weapons, but no one can fault the works she does on them. These days, we just double check—which we normally do anyway—because it's habit._

True, and Williams did not mind people double-checking her work. It was done, done well, and she knew it.

_The nonhumans are comfortably settled._ Liara was immured in the back of the medbay with the reputation of being unsociable, Garrus was in the garage with other techie-nerds of his own ilk, and Wrex sat around glowering at everyone. Oh, and Tali in engineering. Adams loved Tali, and was not scrupulous about dropping discreet hints the Normandy would benefit from Tali's indefinite assistance.

Of course, the Captain might not want to know there were aliens working in engineering.

_The place runs like a well-oiled machine…the major complaint is that the coffee sucks. But, you know how marines are._ Her vivid eyes glittered. Of course the Captain knew. He had been in long enough to know—and to get used to it. Shepard did not fidget, but her eyes cast about as though for inspiration. What else did he need to know? What else would he _want_ to know? _We'll be back at the Citadel in a few days, if things go according to plan. Well, I guess things never go according to plan. _She knew firsthand.

Shepard sat for awhile in meditative silence. _The crew really wishes you were here; no one's happy about the stunt Udina pulled. In fact, if he wants to contact us at any point, I get the feeling he'll get a little interference…_

Best to be honest. Joker would put Udina on hold and leave him there, with the justification that life aboard the _Normandy_ was never slow. And what would Udina know about it to contradict him?

_You know_, Shepard leaned forward, _I never realized how awkward these prerecorded reports __were. With your permission, I think I'll keep them to a minimum—they can't be fun to listen to. Oh, speaking of reports and not having fun—I think I might have stepped on the Council's toes. Between us, sir, I can't believe _they_, for all intents as purposes, run the galaxy. I've never met a more irritating group of people, and I've got two out of three Council races represented on this ship. They get along fine. With just about everyone. Maybe it's something in the Citadel's water…_

Shepard abruptly looked past the recorder. _Excuse me a moment. Yes?_ Softly in the background rumbled a voice, indiscernible. _I'll be there in a minute. Tell Joker to take us in quietly. _Shepard grinned at the messenger. _Well, tell him sometimes a Hollywood entrance should stay in Hollywood. _Shepard returned her attention to the recorder. _You know, I never got that whole Hollywood bit. We're running into that trouble I predicted earlier. If I have anything to add, I'll append it. Goodbye, sir._


	79. Past and Future

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Do you think you'll ever go back to Mindoir?" Alenko asked, as he and Shepard began their nearly nightly ritual of sitting up late. It had only taken him a few days of practice to wake up and _get up_, in time to meet her in the mess. He usually missed her leaving, but she usually showed up within a few minutes—never more than twenty. He'd taken to keeping an eye on the time.

It was also a time for conversations that might not otherwise occur, due to the sensitive nature of some of them. Shepard would have shut down almost anyone else asking about Mindoir. But Alenko wasn't, really. He was feeling out what her thoughts on the future were, beyond running down Saren.

If plans for the future were a punch, she would fail in the basic principle of 'visualize punching _through_ the target, so as not to lose any of the power in the punch'.

"I've already gone back," she admitted, putting her playing cards in order.

Alenko had never mentioned it, but Shepard's organizational skills were part of the reason she was a poor card player. She organized them, left to right, low to high, without apparently realizing she was doing it.

To Alenko's surprise, Shepard continued, albeit tentatively, as if feeling her way across thin ice. "While I was still on the _El Alamein._ The colony was reestablished, you know. We eventually made port there." Shepard lowered her cards, remembering to tilt them towards her, instead of letting them fall face up. "I visited them…my family." She swallowed. "But it was a bad trip. I didn't sleep well."

Reading between the lines, and the expression on her face, Alenko knew she _meant_ she had forced herself to stay awake until absolute exhaustion set in. He could imagine it, the obsessive attention to unnamed, meaningless duties so as not to fall asleep.

So the nightmares would stay away.

So she would be awake if _they_ came back...

Shepard glanced at Alenko's unfocused gaze—currently directed at his cards—to find another moment of unspoken understanding. "You grew up on Earth, right?" She did not _mind_ Alenko asking about Mindoir, mostly because he asked about it before the Raids. He knew about the batarians, and the Alliance's inability to save more than a handful of people. He knew, or at least surmised, the ugly deaths Shepard had seen.

But the real interest focused on a point months, even years earlier, with a slightly geeky farm girl who wanted nothing to do with the Alliance. Someone busting her knuckles on tractors. She didn't know anyone else who was really interested in that colony girl these days; the soldier was supposedly more interesting.

She was not sure how to feel about someone trying to see past the yards of navy blue fabric, swathes of little ribbons end to end, and miles of carefully tied red tape.

"Yeah," Alenko's smile warmed Shepard to her very toes, since it was directed at _her_—beneath the navy blue shell, through the thicket of honors. It was that little smile—the same one she saw in the medbay. It also coaxed a faint smile out of Shepard in turn.

It also caused her to tip her cards the wrong way. Fortunately, Alenko wasn't paying attention to the cards—though this was by determination rather than anything else.

"City boy, all the way. Used to go backpacking in the summer, or on kayaking trips." He'd loved outdoorsy type things like that. After Jump Zero…nothing felt the same."

She knew a little about Jump Zero, and changed topics. They both had things they would rather not discuss too deeply. "You kayak?" The glow of enthusiasm wiped away the shadows under her eyes. It was something she had never done, but would have liked to very much.

"Yeah—you?" Shepard had already made it clear she avoided vacations because experience dictated that her vacations _anywhere_ made those places dangerous. The Blitz, she affirmed, proved that. As a result, even Alenko had the well-entrenched notion that Shepard's idea of shore leave meant staying on the local base and…doing who knew what.

"No, not me," she chuckled nervously, and a little ruefully. "I wanted to try, though. It's just…" She shrugged, unwilling to complete the sentence.

"...never panned out," Alenko finished. He had to quash the chivalrous impulse to say something about 'maybe when this is over we could—'. He didn't want to put any sort of pressure on her, especially an expedition through the places he'd known as a lad.

Still, the idea of Shepard and himself going on one of those kayaking, camping expeditions had a lot of merit. It would probably be fun. He'd never had a reason to think of her as an outdoors girl before, though now that he really thought about it…she _was_ an adventurous person. It was a facet generally hidden by the fact that she was a marine, but he had reason to suspect that if she _really_ let her hair down, she'd be the sort of person who appreciated excursions into the wilderness.

"Yeah. So…?" Shepard looked away.

"It's green in summer," Alenko continued blandly. "Lots of rain. If you plan a kayaking expedition, you've got to plan it so you spend at least one day in the rain."

Shepard repressed a grin. It sounded to her as though she'd found a fellow adolescent puddle-splasher, but she did not say this. "It sounds like…fun."

"It's a lot of work, but yeah. I always thought so. You should probably have a guide, or a group, though." There, that was neutral enough, right?

Shepard tipped her cards back towards herself, cursing her lack of attention that ended in showing off her hand. She managed to squash her curiosity about that kind of a trip with present company. Such a trip would not be without merit. "Sounds like a plan..." Shepard frowned at her cards.

Hadn't she squashed the notion?


	80. Alive and Kicking

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Author's Note: I felt it necessary to go back and add this little note. For those of you who have not read "Cause and Effect", you may find it helpful - in understanding one or two of the characters presented here - to read chapters 34 (Fortitude), 35 (Innocence) and 36 (Abandoned) for clarification purposes. Just hoping to ease a little confusion. ~Raven Studios

-J-

The C-Sec hub bustled as Shepard, Williams, and Alenko stepped into it. As though many cruisers had arrived all at once, disgorging their passengers in a babbling stream of lives and irritation with travel arrangements. "It gets busier every time we dock," Williams noted as she narrowly avoided a preoccupied C-Sec officer.

"No kidding…" Shepard knocked into Alenko, rather than let someone carelessly swinging luggage knock her in the head with it. "Sorry," she murmured.

"It's all right," Alenko turned at the sound of a crash and a howl. "Must be a Friday…."

"It's still Wednesday," Williams answered.

"Don't look at me, I lost track of the days back on…_ouch_!" Shepard jerked, looking down at the sudden sink of sharp claws into her leg. A ginger tabby cat with keen green eyes stood on the ground, before wrapping itself around Shepard's ankles, rubbing its face against her shins and purring loudly.

Shepard's reaction to his attack and sudden display of feline affection shocked her colleagues. Her face broke into a wide, genuine smile, banishing much of the care beginning to etch into her face. "_Fitz!_"

The cat continued his rubbing and purring until Shepard successfully snatched him up, cradling him in her arms. Fitz sported more white in his fur than Shepard remembered—which wasn't surprising, seeing how long ago she'd found him. She had never expected to see him again, let alone here, of all places.

"_Fitz_?" Williams arched her eyebrows.

"Short for Fitzpatrick…O'Conner named him, but where…" Where was his handler? And was it even possible—her stomach wiggled like gelatin dessert—that his handler was the one to whom he'd originally gone? Surely not…but Fitz was a very old cat, and she'd have known him anywhere.

He knew her.

"Stop that animal!" C-Sec had finally caught up, looking harassed, harried, and irritable. It was a mood usually accompanied by stupid citations.

"He's stopped," Shepard answered calmly, stroking the purring cat, but her eyes were not fixed on the turian officer. She continued scanning the crowd, as though looking for a familiar face.

"Hey! We got him!" the turian hollered over his shoulder. "Try and keep a hold on him, would you?"

"I told you!" another turian voice responded irritably, "This place is like a…a _herd_ of dhows!"

"Cows," the humans corrected, almost in unison, with only one of them knowing what a 'dhow' really was.

The other turian appeared out of the crowd, in a C-Sec uniform, scowling at his comrade. "They knocked his case out of my hands—I was going to keep him sequestered in the…" he glanced over at the humans, back at the other turian, then froze.

Shepard's grin widened, if that was possible. She did not say it, but the words hung in the air.

_Well, look at you_.

The turian turned slowly, his mouth agape, mandibles waving slightly. "It's…._you_…" he blinked then fell back on protocol, though he snapped to as though still in boot camp—much to the surprise of Shepard's marines and the other C-Sec officer. "Valen Kyrvayne, ma'am. At your service."

"Commander Shepard," Valen shook Shepard's proffered hand. "You're all grown up. What are you doing here?" Here, where she least expected to see him, too. Not that she'd _ever _expected to see him again. Not in a galaxy this size.

"Congratulations, Commander." After all, the last time he saw her, she was still near the bottom of the military ladder. He had no concept of how far 'commander' was from her original rank, but he could hazard a guess that it was _very_ far. She was older now, but the eyes were the same. "Fresh to C-Sec." And he had the same sort of enthusiasm about his work as Garrus.

"You two, uh, know each other?" the other turian asked, looking less hassled and more wrong-footed.

Valen shrugged. "The Commander here saved my life."

"I was still a private," Shepard murmured to her marines. "I see Fitz is still alive and kicking."

"Yeah, he _bites_ too," the turian officer agreed.

Valen waved the accusation of misuse of teeth away. "He just responds badly to shouting."

"Absolutely," Shepard put in, still stroking the purring cat, who by now sounded like nothing so much as a rusty motor. And with what Fitz had lived through, it was understandable. Gone was the scrawny, starving kitten, replaced by a venerable though still hale cat.

"Yeah." Valen grinned ruefully. Shepard _would_ know. "This is Alir, my squadmate."

Alir rolled his eyes. Shepard couldn't blame him, but what else could you expect, at a meeting of old acquaintances?

"Lt. Alenko and Gunnery Chief Williams." Shepard motioned to one, then to the other. "First day?" she motioned with a finger to C-Sec.

"Yeah, just got off the boat, as it were." Valen looked down at Fitz, memories plainly playing before his mind's eye.

"He's a good cat," and it was less painful to let him go, this time, "you keep taking good care of him." Though, obviously Fitz was _very _well cared for.

_I didn't know turians liked cats_, O'Conner's voice echoed in Shepard's mind.

"I will," Valen took Fitz back, who seemed content to be taken back, though he shifted in Valen's arms so as to watch Shepard.

For a moment the human and the turian stood, sizing each other up. Despite the sudden awkward silence neither one seemed ready to walk away.

Shepard knew Udina was waiting, and she did not mind making him wait. Finally Shepard sighed, smiling wryly. "Look me up sometime—we'll talk."

Valen smiled. "I'll do that. Enjoy your stay on the Citadel, Commander."

Shepard nodded, and the turians turned to walk away.

"It's _Spectre, you know," _Alir blandly noted as the crowd screened Shepard from sight.

"_Spectre_?" Valen turned sharply—eliciting a growl from Fitz—hoping to catch another sight of Shepard.

There was nothing to see, until he finally glimpsed her in the elevator, rising towards the Presidium.

Thank you. He'd forgotten to say 'thank you'.


	81. With Love

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams dropped the box from home on her work station and slit the packaging seals. First came a stack of messages recorded on OSDs, each bearing the name of a sister—or in the case of Mrs. Williams, 'Mom'. That solved the eternally burning question of 'what am I going to do once shift is over'.

The bundle of socks—all with anti-slip tread, not unlike the sort of socks issued at a hospital—bore a paper strip with a note in Sarah's scribble: _For the cold feet syndrome._ Williams grinned at the gray socks: well, that would certainly help combat it, if something psychological could be combated by anything other than simple acclimation. Fortunately, since it was during the 'day' she did not notice the cold feet as much, so she set aside the socks.

Beneath the socks and the OSDs lay…

William's face lit up. A quart-size freezer bag full of clove-flavored hard candies—which no NEX she had ever visited carried—a handful of what Lynn had dubbed 'funny gum' (Williams would admit she liked unusual flavors), and a tightly sealed tin containing her usual supply of 'war cake', a dense, spicy cake which got its distinctive shape from being baked in a coffee tin. It was, so the story went, a relic from the wars in the twentieth century.

The age of the recipe did not stop the cake from being delicious, or the only way Williams would eat raisins.

That was when she saw it, nestled right next to the ration cake: a glass jar with a steam-sealed lid and ring full of something red with green…bits…in it. "Oh _mom_…" Williams picked it up, and turned it. Tied around the neck of the jar was a card on a ribbon in her mother's handwriting.

_For the salsa-loving Lieutenant. _Following this notation was a list of ingredients—displayed in case of unknown food allergies (or a morbid curiosity as to what Williams was trying to poison him with). She had not intended he mother to take her seriously, when she'd made the crack about Alenko and his love of outrageously spicy food.

…and at the same time she realized she had absolutely no intention of letting the toxic habanera salsa go to waste. Besides—why not? She wasn't the only one who rolled her eyes at the amount of hot sauce drowning his eggs every morning. Setting everything back in its place—but snagging a stick of gum—she gingerly carried the jar of salsa towards the elevator.

The way she handled it might have led an onlooker to think she had a bottle of explosives. As she waited for the elevator to carry her up to the mess she could not help remembering all the times Sam and his cohorts had ever handled lit dynamite and ended up blown to bits by the stuff*.

Consequently, she carried the jar of salsa –which was to her way of thinking every bit as dangerous—very carefully indeed.

-J-

Alenko sat down in a quiet corner of the _Normandy_ with the box from home, addressed to him in his mother's handwriting. She had sent them every few months since the time he'd enlisted, and had never seemed to lose her appreciation for doing so. It was nice to know someone was thinking about him. The first thing he found was a coffee mug, wrapped in paper.

A Vancouver souvenir mug, which meant that the blue, standard-issue _Normandy_ mug was about to become an extinct species on this voyage. He must have seen this sort of heavy-bottomed ceramic a million times growing up, and had never thought about getting one.

Not until he left Vancouver, anyway. Until he left, it was just something for tourists. He'd lived there—he hadn't needed mementos. He was glad to have one now.

Next came a note on folded lilac paper—also written in his mother's hand. Unlike some, Mrs. Alenko kept the art of actually _writing_ correspondences alive and well. In this case, the note addressed a few minor questions, and explained the origins of 'Tonka Tuff'.

He _knew_ pint-sized construction equipment had come into the picture at some point.

Even more amusing was the bright yellow die-cast dump truck on a key ring, in a corner of the box right next to…

…a couple kilos of _real coffee_. To be fair he noticed the coffee first; it meant temporary freedom from the standard-issue stuff. The coffee in its airtight foil pouches was the same stuff his dad had drunk every morning since some of Alenko's earliest recollections. Some of these recollections preceded words, being just the smell of coffee filling the house. As it turned out, coffee was an acquired taste, and it was not until enlisting that he had acquired it.

He picked up the keychain, watching the little dump truck swing freely in midair, brilliantly yellow and quite heavy for something so small. Tonka Tuff—just like certain marines he could name.

Williams caught up with him a moment later, as he rinsed out the mug, and placed it in the mug rack. She carried a box from home in one arm, and a non-commercially labeled jar of something red in the other. "Okay…long story…it's habanera salsa. And it's going toxic." She set it on the counter. "And it's for you." Williams wished he'd say something instead of looking amused. "Look—it came up in my last letter home, and mom took me seriously…enjoy." Williams turned on her heel.

"Thanks, Chief," Alenko announced, thoroughly amused by Williams' suddenly poker-stiff comportment.

Williams grinned. "If it doesn't kill you…let me know."

"I'll do that." Alenko was too aware by now that most people who knew about his appreciation for spicy foods—the spicier the better—thought it odd. Well, Tabasco certainly made the standard-issue stuff more palatable. Frankly, when living on a spaceship bland food was inevitable. Old habits die hard, and a taste for spicy things carried over to shore leave.

-J-

To prevent confusion, Williams is referring to Yosemite Sam and various Looney Tunes characters. Remember: Sam's mug is on her coffee mug. ^_^ Looney Tunes are, of course, property of Warner Brothers.


	82. Pen and Paper

Beta-read by Saberlin.

*Remember (from "With Love") that Mrs. Alenko likes to write her letters on paper, rather than recording them.

-J-

_Dear Kaidan,_

_I hope your new posting is everything you hoped it would be. Your father and I were surprised to hear you were leaving the SSV Berlin, after all. I'm sorry you can't tell us much about this _Normandy _of yours—your father is very curious, for all he doesn't let on. _

Yes, Alenko thought, watching the graceful, elegant penmanship of the letter, his father would be interested and not show it—but if there was one thing his father could not do, it was fool Mom. Married life or space service must do that to you—he couldn't fool Mom either.

_It's so hard to know what questions I can ask that you can answer, so I'm just going to plow right in, and leave the worrying about answers to you. First and foremost, how are you? I hope you're able to keep your headaches under control. A hundred thousand things mankind can eliminate or correct and they can still do nothing about migraines, or the common cold. _

_The tone of your last letter hints the _Normandy _and her crew are real pieces of work. _

By which she no doubt meant the tone of the letter came across like a kid at Christmas, compared to the usual same-stuff-different-day missives.

_Your father and I actually saw the piece about the Normandy—the XO you mentioned came across as a charming lady. I was sure I had seen her face before, but you know how I am with names. I was honestly expecting someone a little older, but no doubt if she's old enough to know that running like crazy is sometimes the best option, she's smart enough to do the job. _

Yes, Shepard was certainly smart. He thanked goodness his mother knew enough about military life that the word charming was simply her impression, and not a good, broad hint for him to find a girl. Mom understood a person being married to his career—Dad had been for years.

_Please find enclosed a new mug for your new posting—don't tell him I told you, but it was your father's idea. He says no one uses a standard issue mug indefinitely and…'that boy could use a break from standard issue'. I don't see why it matters, but what do I know about living as a spacer?_

Alenko had to grin at this. Having a husband and a son in the service left Mom willing to simply accept certain oddities of spacers in general. He also had to grin at his father's comment, since a similar comment had been flung his direction several times previously. Alenko could hear the words in the back of his head.

_Your father also sends coffee. He couldn't remember your favorite flavor, so he guessed. Thankfully he guessed right. I hope you enjoy it. I don't see why the Alliance can't provide decent coffee, but I suppose they like to sink credits into office chairs for the brass. _

From Dad no higher sign of worry over his boy could come. Dad might be a gruff old coot sometimes, but only because he did not want to leave himself open to the accusations of showing too much affection for—or pride in—a fully-grown son.

Those things—pride and affection even for a full-grown son—Alenko's mother had affirmed whenever the topic came up, was _her_ job. And she'd always done it well.

He also overlooked the comment about the brass, knowing his mother meant the senior brass. She was probably right about the new chairs, though. Joker certainly complained about _his_ seat often enough, and you'd think the pilot would have the choicest spot.

_You also asked about the origins of Tonka Tuff—yes, you're supposed to spell it funny. A long time ago—but not so far away—Tonka was a brand of toy. I think you can still find them in antique shops. Anyway, they specialized in pint-sized construction equipment, usually painted a brilliant yellow, like the real things. Of course, we don't use those sorts of oversized tools anymore, but they remained popular for a long time. You'd be surprised how many things do._

Yes, Kaidan nodded. Like the Macarena. Some things never died.

_These Tonka toys had a reputation for being very durable, but as they were only toys meant for young children, the phrase Tonka Tuff was coined…and stuck. On that note, I've also enclosed a little something you might enjoy. You'll have to dig to find it, I'm sure (small things always sink to the bottom), but I hope it will amuse you. _

_I think it will. _

Alenko smiled at the letter. So _that _was where Tonka Tuff came from…and it was _still _applicable to Williams and the Commander. The thought that he ought to get out of the habit of thinking it—lest it come out of his mouth in front of them—sparked but did not fully ignite, and so was forgotten before long.

_As much as I hate to sound like a mother, please do be careful out there. Picking slugs out of one's armor is bad enough, but I'd hate for you to have to pick them out of yourself. I'm sure all mothers of Alliance servicemen think the same way. Perhaps this is why I prefer to _write _letters, rather __than _record _them—that way, the embarrassing mom-stuff stays between us. _

_But you know, parents _will _worry._

Of course, Mom had no idea a lot of other people with parents, siblings, spouses, or significant others usually got a few words of concern, care, and caution—the three Cs—in their recorded messages. When mail came in, it was almost impossible to help overhearing a little bit of someone's letters from home.

You learned not to listen.

_That's about all I can think of to say, without resorting to detailing the weather, and you know all about that. Be very careful, and come see us the next time you have shore leave. _

_Love, _

_Mom_


	83. Safety First

Beta-read by Saberlin.

For reference: This message is not in response to the one Williams sent in 'A Breather'. These are actually in response to a message sent while en route to the Citadel on the first trip. Several factors contributed to the tardiness of the box. Suffice it to say when the message was recorded, they knew Williams was safely out of Eden Prime, and happily has a new shipside posting.

-J-

The recorder clicked on, revealing an angular-featured but otherwise mousy-looking young woman, her dark hair tied back in a prim bun, tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose.

_Hey Ash, just got off work. Mr. Holiday is being absolutely dreadful…if the pay and perks weren't so good, I'd make him find and train a new assistant, leaving him hanging like a worm on a hook. _

She threw herself back in a chair, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes.

_Last I heard, you were _en route _to the Citadel—you might already have left...I don't know how fast the naval post office. I just wanted to tell you to be careful. Spacestations are _so dangerous, _just a bubble of pressurized environment in the great void… _

_But mom told me not to start off by worrying you—which is why I started off by growling about work. But really—I'm not arguing with your choices, but…wouldn't it have been better to…well, there I go. I miss you, Ash, and you're out in the middle of a weird place. I suppose I should count my blessings that it's _quiet_, but you know me: I'm not happy unless I'm worrying, and since you're the one out in the middle of the Traverse…_

Lynne shrugged as though to say 'what can you expect?', but her worried expression eased.

_Oh, right, you asked how Mom was? She's fine, just a bout of the flu or something, not pneumonia or anything to worry about. Little Miss Bio-Chem with an A and more extra credit than she knows what to do with _insisted _I let you know. I tell you, Sar's _the _brightest girl in her class. She'll rattle on about this _stuff_, and I just shake my head. _

_Does she even know what happens when some of that stuff gets on your skin? Or if it's inhaled?_

_I'm not worried _she'll _do something silly, I'm worried about her _classmates_. You know I always hated lab classes…dummies with sharps or chemicals…bad, bad combinations. _

_But there, I'm worrying you again. Maybe it has to do with the lack of feeling that something awful is going to happen. If I'm not worrying, I'm borrowing trouble with a high interest rate. _

_So, how's the Citadel? It's supposed to be really...interesting. Is the food on the ships pretty bad? You better watch out, green eggs may be a joke, but they are _not _a laughing matter. Don't eat them. Ever._

Lynne began absently chewing on a fingernail, her dark eyes directed at some unseen feature on the wall.

_Actually, to tell the truth, I think I'm really feeling hassled because Mr. Holiday was having a bad day. You've met him. When he's in a good mood he's an absolute joy to work with…and when he gets like this, he makes me want to scream and pummel his face in. _

_Yeah, I know. Incongruous, huh? You're not giving me a bad name by describing me as a nervous Chihuahua type amongst your cohorts, are you? Are you, Ash? Because I'm not—I'm just practical and prepared for trouble._

She shook a finger at the recorder, beaming as though she expected the recording to be viewed en masse. _I know you're listening, 'cause Ash likes to brag on the family: _don't _believe a _word _she says about me being a nervous wreck, Ash's a real joker. Sort of. You _should _be_.

_If you want to know who's _really _biting her nails, you should talk to Abby. She's still doing the hack and slash thing (and no, she's using blunted swords—I checked), and they have some kind of trials for something…_

Lynne waved, evidently not in the loop enough to know _exactly_ what she was talking about. _She's been acting crazy all week, and it looks like she'll be doing it for a couple more weeks. Sar's ready to put her in a chokehold to get her to calm down…because you know when Abby gets nervous she goes to Sar…not that I'm complaining. _

_Ash, tell me something….and since they're probably watching this, let me address it to all you military types. Do you people use swords anymore…I mean, even if just for the 'gee wow' factor? Do you know of anyone who _does_, because I ask you, what is the _point _of using a sword in this day and age?_

_Not that I enjoyed playing Pistol Patricia. _

Lynn sighed, standing up and taking the recorder with her. _Yeah, I've got nothing to say and all day to say it_. But I hate letting too much time lapse between sessions of bugging you. If you weren't family, you could charge me fees for counseling. She smiled, in which the resemblance to her older sister became more pronounced. _You know, I'm about this close to taking up a new hobby_, she held up fingers to indicate 'very close'. _Ice skating. Yeah, the trip hazards and the falls are there…but you know…it could be fun. Especially since I only have to go as fast as I can safely manage. _

_Don't look for me at any competitions—that's Abby's thing—but I'll keep you posted. I know _you _of all people won't laugh at the nervous jumpy one taking up a sport that could result in cracked skull or a half-dozen other blades-on-feet injuries. Or broken bones. _

_Just kidding. I'm really looking forward to it…I haven't told anyone else, so I'm telling you…keep me in mind? If I die, I died happy, and you can have my collection of wall scrolls. Speaking of which, do you need anything from home? Or _want _anything? I think mom's planning a box, so…let me know? _

_This may actually get to you late, if she _is _planning a box…because you know how much we love to send you everything all at once, especially letters containing our love. _

_Love you, Ash, keep your head down, and may you never run out of dry socks. _

The recording ended in a sigh from Lynne.


	84. Unfamiliar

_Beta-read by Saberlin. _

-J-

The vid-recorder switched on, revealing a young woman with snapping black eyes. Her thick black hair was braided and coiled in an impossibly intricate up-do, but an impish smile prevented her from looking like a countess. Williams had to shake her head at Abby's choice of clothes, a black corset, laced with purple ribbon. Abby beamed at the recorder, waving her fingers.

_Hey Ash. I'll bet Sar's told you the big news, but if you haven't got her message, I won't blow it. Well, school's going great, or so people tell me. I'm actually a little disappointed: I can ace most of these classes with my eyes closed. I'm telling you, I ought to just skip college and go straight into the professional world. I mean, really. All the guys in my class are complete dweebs._

_If it weren't such a bad idea, I'd so join the Alliance. But, you know, being a Williams—I'm glad you've finally got your shipside posting, Ash. I hope they're not kicking you in the teeth. Also, I don't think they've got a lot of room for brainy-pretty people like me. I'd hate to get stuck in some basement somewhere shuffling someone's OSDs and managing their database. I hate data crunching._

Abby looked away from the camera, almost rolling her eyes to do so. Another impish smile appeared on her lips. _Don't let her in here, Sar, I'm recording! Sorry, Ash—you know how Sar and Sadie are. Everywhere at once. _She waved dismissively. _I've actually been really busy outside school. _

_Well, I say I've been busy…it's my down time that's full. I'm in the competition circuit!_ Abby got up and returned with a sword, with ornamental red cord tied about hilt and sheath. _See? I actually got in! I passed preliminaries just after you left for Eden Prime, and we've got the first qualifying round in another six days. I'm going to _die _before it starts. You know patience _isn't_ one of my virtues. I wish it was. _Abby sighed, setting the sword on the floor, to prop her chin in her hand, elbow resting on an unseen table.

_If they televise the matches, I'll let you know, so you can sit in your…well, wherever you get broadcasts and cheer for me. Have you told whatever buddies you've made what weirdos your sisters are? I'll bet you have—goodness knows I've said it often enough—but with all due affection. Well, just remember I'm grade-a weird. _She patted the corset, as though presenting evidence. _I'm telling you, Ash, they're a little uncomfy, but you get used to it. _

_Before you start laughing, no I don't wear the weird stuff while I'm competing. It's _always _the right clothes for the right occasion. Can you imagine swordfights in a corset? I tried it once, just to see __if I could—I nearly passed out. Couldn't breathe. It was crazy. _Abby shook her head with another sigh. _You know, we really miss you out here. You heard about Lynne's most recent artistic endeavor? She flubbed the actress plan last month—stage fright. We could have told her that, but all the moral support in the world couldn't save her from it. She's doing _ceramics—_and she's pretty good at it, too. She says it calms her jitters._

_I tell you, if you've got a place to put something ceramic, let her know—she'd love to throw some clay for you. Just to show she _can _do it. You know how she gets_, but the words were tinged with sisterly pride that Lynne had finally found her artistic niche. _Hey, look at this_, Abby produced a fluted bowl which had all the delicacy of fine china. The cranes painted on it were somewhat wanting in aesthetics, but the overall effect was still lovely. _She did this in like, an hour—not counting the glaze. As soon as I find the right flowers for it, that's what I'm going to put in it. _She put the vase off to one side, and fell to musing before the screen. _You ever miss sitting around and BSing with us, Ash? Not saying anything's wrong, but since you left things have kind of…well, seems like we're starting to drift. I've got classes, Sar's a social butterfly…that leaves Lynne and mom. _

_Don't let me bog you down, I was just wondering. Once summer holidays start, I'm sure it'll get more back to normal. And the next time you get shore leave, you've gotta come spend it with us, Ash. Sadie misses you. She'll start chewing the stuff of yours we're looking after if you don't. _

Another wicked grin lit Abby's face, and she ceased leaning on the table. _And this time _I _won't stop her. She's in a funny mood anyway. _Out of the recorder's visual range a series of loud barks sounded through Abby's closed door. _As you can hear, Sadie says hi. And I think Mom's told us all to check and see if you need socks. Honestly, I think she expects us to forget what with…with one thing and another_. Abby cut herself off abruptly, as though afraid to reveal some secret.

_She won't believe us when we tell her you know enough to stock your own socks. You're lucky she doesn't knit, or you'd never run out of nice, hand-knitted, lumpy socks. In lurid colors. And stripes_. Abby laughed at this, pulling a face to indicate she was not serious. _You know, it isn't much fun to give you grief when you're not here in person. Well, I'll save it for the next time you're home, huh?_

Abby glanced past the recorder, her eyes bugging. _Aw crap, I'm late...I've gotta go…I love you. _She stood up, leaning forward to turn off the recorder. A thin silver chain threatened to swing free from Abby's corset, but a restraining hand kept the talisman in place. Abby caught it, looking into the recorder. _Be really careful out there. I mean it._


	85. Pet

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The vid-mail opened to reveal an olive-skinned young woman, with dark hair, cropped raggedly about her head, giving the impression of just having gotten out of bed. Her eyes were large in her face, glittering with humor, and her grin impish, revealing a dimple in one cheek, but not the other. All in all, Sarah Williams' vid-mail to her sister oozed the delights of lovingly needling a family member, when said family member could not needle back during the discussion—only listen. Or ignore the recording and risk missing something important.

_Hi Sis! Okay, okay, so, anything worth mentioning? Cute guys…they don't have cute _aliens _out there in the Traverse, do they? Huh? Come on, you gotta tell me_ something_. Seriously: tell me _something_. All I get in school is 'blah-blah-blah, watch your future, don't screw up your life, make good decisions and_ enlist _when you get the chance'. _

_I'm not enlisting, Sis, I'm not going to do it. I'll go in as an O, but only if stuff doesn't pan out. _

…_still…keep making us proud, huh? Mom's tickled to death about your reassignment. I'll bet you are, too. Space jockeying was what you wanted, right? _

_Secondly, what's it like, serving with Shepard? Is she nice? Or is she all stuffy like she looks on TV, because I gotta tell you…she looked _pretty _inflexible. I'll bet she's a real taskmaster. Crack the whip, and all that. Still…Star of Terra, living hero…you'll get me an autograph, right? For the one who got you the Yosemite Sam mug? Come on—no one'll believe_ my _sister is serving with_ the _Shepard_.

_Okay, so…what else do you need to know? The weather's okay—except on the days when it's crud. Everyone's fine—annoying, but fine—school sucks, but that's normal. And it_ does _suck, I'm telling you—if you thought it was bad when you were in…just…count your blessings._

_Andy says hi. He was visiting from the_ K2 _the other week. He hadn't heard you got reassigned, but he was glad you got off Eden Prime without the bodybag…was it that bad, Ash? I…we heard a little about it, but not much. It's like no one wants to admit what's going on…_

…_or is that what Shepard's up to? I mean, I understand if you can't talk about it…but rumors are the two-twelve got hit pretty hard. I hope it's not true…_

Sarah turned from the recorder to shift uncomfortably. _Crap, how do you say stuff like that without…never mind…I'm not rerecording this… _

She turned back to face the device, running her hand through her hair. _Uh…let's not talk about depressing things! There's a new vid with Claudio Murray in it! You love Claudio Murray! If you can get home anytime while it's in theaters, we should go—we'll drag Abby and Lynne and Mom and just make a day out of it! _

_Oh…hang on…_Sarah swiveled in her chair, to lean towards the doorframe just visible in the background. _What mom? Huh? Socks?_…okay, okay, I'll ask her…Sarah swiveled her chair around again. _Um, mom wants me to ask if you need some more socks. She's really worried. I don't see why, it's not like you get frostbite in space, but you know how moms are, right?_

Again something the recorder did not pick up apparently caught Sarah's attention as she leaned back to the door again. _Yes? _She glanced back at the recorder, _Hang on again_ _Sis it's one of those days_…_yes mom? Right, okay…hehe, I'll ask…_Sarah's expression turned devilish as she shifted her chair around, leaning her elbows on the desk, blocking most of the room behind her out. _Soooo my so considerate sister…what's a guy—and an officer—to think when you hand him a big old honking jar of salsa? Mom wants to know if he liked it. You know what my question about this El-Tee is…so? Is he? _

_You're glaring at me now, aren't you?_

Sarah sat back, grinning wickedly, putting her hands behind her head and her feet on some unseen prop, so she could casually lean back in her chair. _Well, I'll just let you stew a bit and we'll see what happens._

She abandoned the relaxed pose to lean towards the recorder again, looking conspiratorial. _Knocked the stuffing out of any turians yet? You ought pick a fight with at least one—you know…family thing. Watch out for those talons—it looks like it'd hurt if you got winged by those…like in the martial arts vids…whooooaaaaahhh! _She demonstrated several akido moves.

_Seriously, I wouldn't mess with those krogan though…they're kinda…you know…scary looking._

Suddenly a large dog of no particular pedigree barked, putting forepaws on the table in order to bark at the recorder, slobbering wildly. _Hey, Sadie…Sadie get _down_! _For a moment the dog and the teenager wrestled, knocking the recorder over, to reveal the presence of several puppies, wagging their tails hopefully.

Sarah's face reappeared, holding the recorder with one hand and the dog at bay with the other. _Oh…I guess no one told you…Sadie had puppies! Um…later sis!_

The vid cut off abruptly.

"Puppies," Ashley Williams repeated, less blankly and with more irritation. "How could Sadie have had _puppies_?"

Shepard grinned, sitting at the weapons maintenance bench beside Williams. "Well, you know…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Williams held up a forestalling hand. "She's crazy…the girl is crazy…"

"Yeah, I like the description of me as a whip-wielding taskmaster. She doesn't know about Garrus and Wrex, does she?"

"No, and I'm not going to _tell_ her…" Williams had already viewed the message, and despite a few mortifying comments made by Sarah and her loose lips, most of the recording was amusing…

"She sounds like a great kid." Shepard smiled at her shotgun, surprised, but pleased when Williams had asked 'This is all off record, Skipper...do you want to see something funny?'. Upon agreeing, Williams produced the vidmail on disc and a player. '

"She is," Williams agreed, reassembling the assault rifle in pieces on the table.


	86. Developments

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard gazed thoughtfully at the datapad she wasn't really reading. In the dim 'after hours' of the mess, sound was limited to Alenko playing solitaire across the table, and the general 'nighttime' sounds aboard the _Normandy_.

She leaned on her elbows, enjoying the quiet companionship. It surprised her when this evening ritual established itself, much less when it continued. With nothing to say and a frustratingly long lull in the hunt for Saren she had time to think.

What more did that turian have to do? Set off a nuke somewhere? Surely _someone _knew _something…_and again she found herself wondering whether someone was still protecting him. No one could disappear so completely without some kind of backing. But what kind? The only information she had was insight into a cold-blooded, efficient Spectre.

Shepard forced her thoughts in a different direction: the circular logic, especially this late, tended to give her uncomfortable, unsettling dreams.

The first 'safe subject that came to mind was Williams sharing her vidmail from home. That was something new, in Shepard's book. It was almost as though Williams was sharing her family—something Shepard could appreciate. If hers had survived, she would doubtless have at least one letter in a month…and she would probably send out about as many.

It was nice to see that some families stayed closely connected It did not evoke jealousy…just a sense of being glad someone had such a luxury to take for granted.

Except, Williams didn't take it for granted, which was very wise, in Shepard's opinion. She liked Williams. She was a good person to have watching your back, and a good person to hang around with…a highly unusual opinion, coming from Shepard. Shepard usually avoided getting too friendly with anyone. She maintained courtesy, the graces expected of a good officer. She led her people, trained the ones she could…but there was always that wall she kept between herself and other people.

It kept them safe…and it kept her comfortably distanced. People died, especially around her. It was ridiculous and superstitious to think a correlation implied causation…but human minds were not always rational. She sometimes wondered why she had not fought to return to the original status quo…but she had not.

She and Williams worked well together—but that could be said of a lot of other marines, and she did not sit in the mess at mealtimes enjoying comfortable camaraderie. She appreciated the insight into the Williams family, the willingness to share what would otherwise be an inside joke. She hadn't shared that sort of socialization since O'Conner died.

She could almost hear O'Conner now: _And that's because you're such a _doofus_. Shep-aaaard!_

She smiled involuntarily, the revelation of 'Sadie' having had puppies, and the Big Question about the El-Tee…she knew what that question was, too: is he cute?

Involuntarily she glanced up, to find Alenko's mouth scrunched up on one side, as though he was contemplating cheating to win the set. She looked down again quickly, before she could earnestly consider the question.

It was a question she had no business thinking about: he was a fellow soldier and a subordinate (though admittedly, within the ground team, rank was a come-and-go sort of thing).

"If you decide to cheat I won't say anything," Shepard murmured.

"…I may hold you to that…"

Shepard shoved the datapad aside, peering at the upside-down game. "How many versions do you know?" Marines who practiced any degree of isolation tended to know quite a few forms of solitaire.

After all, Alenko was not so companionable with everyone—mostly the ground crew (barring Wrex). It was something that came of putting your life in someone else's hands…

…unless you were Shepard, Jalissa A.

"Three." Alenko looked up from the cards. For a moment he studied her, and then asked the fatal question, "You?"

"More than three."

"Okay…six?"

"What is this? Twenty questions?" But she smiled as she asked.

"It's better than solitaire. How many?" Alenko was smiling now, the process of pinning her down to a real answer apparently much more interesting than a card game.

She was not sure how to feel about that. It reminded her forcibly that this tour was bending her long-standing habit of not letting people get close to her out of shape on this tour. _How _had that happened? It would have taken more, _much_ more, than that little smile she sometimes saw…or the genuine grin she was getting now…

She looked away, as her mouth curled into a smile to mirror his. Reflexive, she told herself. It was a human reaction to smile when someone else smiled. Twelve…without referring to the rules." It was not _bad_. She learned about one in a year—playing until the novelty wore off—starting sometime after Fitz left.

"That's not too bad." There were hundreds of variations. "Want a round of Skyllian Five?"

Shepard glanced at the datapad, then at the hand poised to sweep up the cards. "Sure." She was doing it again. It was late, she ought to go to bed, start the day fresh instead of just starting the day. Yet, the idea of leaving in the middle of this almost-routine was extremely undesirable.

What was this tour—and this crew—doing to her? If things ever went back to 'normal', she would hardly be able to function.

Shepard accepted the cards, frowning.

"Something on your mind, Shepard?" Alenko asked tentatively, unsure if he was exceeding his limits.

She looked up, ready to say 'no, I'm fine', but the words came out wrong. "Unexpected developments."

"You're telling me…you know," Alenko propped his chin thoughtfully in his hand, "you might be a better player if you'd stop showing me your cards."

"Noted."

"…and if you stopped arranging them in ascending order..."

"Noted." But her mouth twitched.

"And your poker face needs a lot of work," he clicked his tongue in mock sympathy.

"It does not!" But she laughed, softly so as not to draw much attention.

See? Unexpected developments.


	87. Salsa

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The cafeteria gleamed painfully white, a brilliance not even the early-morning haze of unceremoniously rousted teenagers could darken. It was easy enough to dampen a mood back home, but here the white walls, white floors, white _everything_ made it impossible for ten teens to cast a funk in a room, let alone one by himself.

Most of them fought against teenaged angst the best they could; it was a fruitless endeavor and robbed them of energy or attention better applied to other things...usually things that had _consequences _for failure. Everyone knew, though, that _consequences_ meant _punishments. _

Kaidan yawned and tried to stifle it. He ought to be used to these early mornings by now. Maybe it was the lack of actual sunlight, or any imitation thereof. Judging by breakfast, it was too much to hope for any improvement in the situation. If they couldn't get the goobers out of the eggs there was no chance for artificial imitations of 'day' and 'night'. He _hated_ the goobers, though problems with food fell far down the list of problems with Brain Camp.

"Morning Kaidan." He loved the way her accent, faint but at the same time noticeable, rendered his name. Only the students, to use the official word, ever used given names. The instructors all used surnames, all day, every day, unfailingly.

Kaidan risked the ire of the instructors—whom most students called jailors, the politest term used when said individuals were out of earshot—to look at the speaker. "Morning Rahna," he answered before she got out of earshot. Stopping to chat was absolutely forbidden when they were supposed to be doing something constructive. Not unlike the military.

But Rahna unfailingly said 'good morning' to as many of her friends as possible en route to her designated table.

She was beautiful, with her dark hair rippling in the fluorescent lights. Who used flouros anymore? You only ever saw them in cheap buildings back on Earth. She turned at her table, and caught his eye, her features smoothing into her usual shy smile before she sat down.

Kaidan hastily turned back to his eggs. Day after day of unbroken, often backbreaking—or literally mind-numbing—training left little material for a positive outlook, but that smile was _the _way to start a day.

He poked the eggs gingerly with his fork.

"Looking for landmines, Kaidan? I can tell you, they don't make them that small," Alex across the table noted, before examining his bacon as though looking for mold. "It's not real. It can't be. Veggie-bacon."

Veggie-bacon or not, you couldn't get Rahna to touch the stuff. Even if other rights were trampled by Conatix, dietary restrictions were not. "I know…but out here…" Kaidan shook his head, before reaching for the large bottle of Tabasco sauce on the table. Opening it, he upturned it over the tasteless, lumpy eggs. The Tabasco scorched the mouth, but also took attention away from the goobers.

He had the sneaking suspicion that, if he ever got out of there, he would never be rid of the habit of putting Tabasco sauce on his eggs. Or almost anything else he wound up eating. It was worse than anything his high school ever served up—not that he ever ate the cafeteria stuff. Some might frown at brown-baggers, but _they_ never got cookies of large size and better taste.

The only thing which could be said, as he tried to make his mother and father's faces vanish from his mind's eye—dwelling on them only made a day harder—was that Conatix did not stint the burgeoning biotics on their caloric intake. Perhaps that was why the food sucked: it was expensive feeding a cafeteria of teenage biotics, two groups of people who could, to quote his father, 'put away the groceries'.

Just not in the fridge.

Kaidan recklessly plowed into his eggs. Time was ticking down before the day really got started, and Instructor Tremaine looked like she was in a _bad_ mood...

-J-

Alenko's eyes remained completely unfocused as he stared at his habanera salsa covered eggs.

Williams and Shepard, sitting on the same side of the table, exchanged bemused looks. Alenko liked to space out during breakfast, and he obviously failed to hear a word of three attempts to get his attention. "Alenko…" Shepard's singsong tone made Williams smother a smirk—it was a tone reminiscent of school days. "Oi."

He responded to the commander-tone, perhaps because he heard it so rarely in the mess.

"Good morning," Shepard waved her fingers.

"Sorry, spaced out," Alenko answered quickly. For a moment he could have sworn he was back there, with Rahna making her round of morning 'good mornings' as she wound her way across the cafeteria.

"We noticed," Williams frowned at Alenko's untouched mountain of eggs. It was amazing how much a biotic could pack away, and still be ready for lunch four hours later. "Are you _really_ going to eat that?" She gestured with her fork.

Alenko looked down at his eggs, glancing over at Shepard, who was toying uninterestedly with her own, evidently having given up the conversation in favor of one he would participate in. "Yeah, why not?"

"Because that much salsa should kill someone." Williams knew about habanera salsa firsthand.

Shepard cocked her head. "I dunno, sounds like a good way to hide goobers, if you ask me."

Sometimes, Alenko mused as he stuck his fork into his eggs, Shepard seemed to read minds. Then again, lots of institutions had improperly beaten, reconstituted eggs. Part of him wondered if the knowledge came from wherever she was, between Mindoir and boot camp.

"Are you all right?" Shepard's brow crinkled as Alenko's expression, or maybe something in his eyes seemed to close off, like heavy drapes drawn over curtains.

"Yeah," his expression lit back up. "Just…remembering."

Shepard nodded, but said no more. She knew a thing or two about remembering.

And knew no one eating that much salsa with that much enjoyment could be wholly human.


	88. Got A Light?

Beta-read by Saberlin.

For those who have not read Cause and Effect: this story references Eva K. Rogers (mentioned briefly in 'Bottom of the Barrel'), the Earthborn/Ruthless/Renegade almost-Shepard. Find an account of her exploits on Torfan in 'Horror', and her actual appearance in 'Triangle'.

(For those wondering about the Spacer/Sole Survivor/Paragon almost-Shepard, John D. Sheffler is also present in 'Triangle' and again in 'Traps'.)

-J-

Alenko sat in Flux, waiting on Shepard and Garrus to drift in. Both had other things that needed doing, which was why they were using Flux as a meeting place. It cut down on travel, coming here instead of running back and forth from the _Normandy_. To quote Shepard 'it makes me feel like I'm back in boot camp—running everywhere without accomplishing anything'.

To which Garrus heartily agreed.

He had been sitting more or less alone, with an empty chair (or two) on either side of him. Flux always seemed to be either in peak hours, or about to go into peak hours. He did not pay much attention when another Alliance blue uniform sat down beside him, setting something alcoholic and alien down before her.

It was pink. With green bubbles. He shuddered: how people could drink that mess, he really did not know.

"Waiting for someone?" she asked blandly.

"Yes." Alenko looked over, catching a lieutenant commander's insignia on her collar. "'Ma'am..."

"Don't salute while I'm drinking, I won't see it anyway," she took a long sip of her drink to prove her point. "So, Kaidan, I'm looking for your superior. She wouldn't be the one you're waiting for, now would she?" Keen grey eyes studied him over the rim of her glass. Cold grey eyes.

He also did not like the familiarity with which she addressed him. Even his own CO, for whom he had great respect, didn't use his first name.

"Rogers!" Shepard's voice snapped through the conversation. She sounded so unabashedly hostile that Alenko wondered if maybe Rogers was just masquerading as an officer, and was about to have her head blown off (in which case, he better be ready to intervene). Shepard was not the type to go around shooting people, just because they upset her, however, she had not shown such a violent dislike of anyone. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Chatting up your Lieutenant. He's a keeper." Rogers smiled, but it was not a nice smile, in fact, Alenko was fairly sure she was imagining all sorts of horrible prolonged torments for Shepard.

"Drinking his blood won't make your biotics any stronger, or last any longer."

Alenko was about to speak up, not liking his position in this conversation. It dripped with subtle connotations, things one had to read between the lines to find and the general tone made him feel like the rope in a tug of war.

A sharp look from Shepard indicated this was a purely professional conversation whatever he might be reading into it, and he had better keep his mouth shut.

Well, at least that made sense. Alenko subsided, as Rogers began to radiate the faintest mass effect field. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Or maybe that was just Rogers.

-J-

"My biotics are _fine_, but you know I'm _always_ looking for new talent." Rogers cast Alenko an appraising look.

She was about to continue when Shepard cut in. "Look somewhere else." She mentally curled her lip: apparently Rogers had never gotten over her Earth-side upbringing (or lack thereof). Despite her articulate way of speaking, she could still make anything sound crude.

Shepard was not worried about Rogers pulling strings, a spider like that always had strings to pull, but it was something to remember, that Rogers' crew—according to what Shepard knew—had one of the largest compliments of biotic soldiers in the Alliance.

This was not about Alenko, though Rogers _would_ undoubtedly like to collect him. This was about Rogers dropping by to say 'hi' and ruffle feathers. Unprofessional, unbecoming, but it was one fight Shepard did not mind participating in.

She hated Rogers more than any other human in existence.

-J-

Rogers, satisfied with the faint color in Shepard's, fished out a cigarette before checking her pockets, ignoring the vibes radiating off Shepard, the 'stay away from my crew you sadistic bitch' vibes. Good thing Shepard was too well-disciplined to ever think of using her Spectre status as an excuse to shoot someone she did not like.

It made irritating her fun. Not that harassing Shepard was Rogers' reason for being on the Citadel, but messing with Shepard was a bonus. She had no doubt that if the Alliance ever thought she was totally out of line, Shepard would be the one they sent after her.

_Do not mix _was probably stamped on both their files:.

"Frak. You wouldn't have a light, would you Shepard?" Her lighter was in her pocket, but she knew prolonging the encounter would only further rile Shepard. Once she was gone, Shepard would probably berate herself for letting Rogers get under her skin.

Shepard, her eyes not leaving Rogers' face, grimly reached back to one of the utility pockets on her belt and produced a small flashlight which she then held up, light on.

"Oh, very mature." Rogers glanced at Alenko, but smiled as she did so.

-J-

Not ten minutes of conversation, the same amount of time it took Alenko to decide he liked Shepard, and he _loathed _the woman. It was like looking at an evil Shepard.

"Well, seeing as you're not feeling chatty, I'll just take my leave. I'll keep a space open for you, Kaidan, in case you get tired of working for…well, in case you get tired of watching people around Shepard die. They have a habit of doing so." Rogers returned her cigarette to its case, put the case in her pocket and prowled out, as though aware all eyes were on her. She was an eye-caching woman, if only because of the way she carried herself and the aura she projected.

Alenko shook his head slowly, unsure if it was disbelief, disgust, or in simple protest. Join her crew? Over his dead body. He'd rather take his chances with Shepard.

-J-

Shepard clenched her teeth. The last comment struck deep, and it took all twelve years of discipline not to plant Rogers face-first onto the floor.


	89. Slinky

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Who _was_ that?" Alenko demanded, once the dark-haired commander was safely out of earshot. The pounding music of Flux would have masked the question, but he did not trust someone like _that_ not to be possessed of extraordinary hearing. It was safer that way.

Shepard eyed the door through which the other officer had vanished with great disgust. Frak, what was Rogers doing here? Shouldn't she be cleaning latrines on some backwater world somewhere? Or dying ignominiously in a dark corner of the galaxy, unobtrusively, and as a result of a mutiny?

"Eva Rogers, she's an oozing lesion on the Alliance and everything it stands for." Alenko glanced up at Shepard, still watching the door. Ouch, that was not a pleasant sentiment, and even more profoundly unabashedly declared than when she called Udina a slug. It was rare for Shepard to bad-mouth people, but here was the exception. "Believe me, if there was one person I could shoot in the back, unarmed, and without reason…it would be her. The galaxy would be better off without her…" Shepard trailed off, lest the venting of ill-feeling reflect badly on her.

"Who _does_ she like?" Rogers made him want to put up a barrier to keep her at bay, or slam her out of whatever room they happened to both be standing in. She did not even try to disguise the way she calculated everything. People were not people to her; they were just numbers, or beads on an ancient abacus.

Rogers struck him as the kind of commanding officer _no one,_ except the ruthlessly ambitious, wanted to be anywhere near. Everyone but herself was expendable, success or failure were determined by some long term aim, the end always justified the means.

An evil version of Shepard…or a failed Shepard. Wasn't there a concept like that in some twentieth-century series of novels? If there was, he forgot which one*.

-J-

"I'm no judge, but I think you're on the list," Shepard answered automatically, the edge of the table cutting into her palm as she gripped it. "Not that that should be very comforting, she's an opportunist; she uses things and people then leaves them broken in her wake." She knew she did not need to say this. Alenko was an astute man, but better in this instance to say too much rather than not enough.

To be fair, Shepard did not speak from personal experience, but out of personal prejudice. She had detested Rogers and her word games the first time they met, months ago, and the enmity was mutual. Shepard would maintain a cold sort of snide civility—if there was such a thing—to keep her personal opinions under control, while Rogers would give hers full vent, though all the while veiling it in too-polite nastiness. No one could accuse either officer of conduct unbecoming, but the cold war was in full swing.

-J-

Slinky. That was the word for Rogers, Alenko concluded abruptly. She was some slinky creature, like a weasel or a ferret, without a spine that could slip, twist and curl in on itself bonelessly...slithering away when things got too uncomfortable.

Or slink off when she lost; if she did lose, Alenko was sure Rogers would not only hold a grudge, she would eventually act upon it.

"Still doesn't tell me who she _is_," Alenko shook his head slowly. He could see what Shepard meant in that bloodthirsty wish.

"She's an L2—they say she's stable, but look at what happened on Torfan and tell me that." Form her tone, Shepard seemed to feel Rogers was a blight on the idea of 'stable' L2s everywhere.

"_She's_ the…well, guess that's not surprising." The Butcher of Torfan finally had a face. It was ironic that Rogers _looked_ as coldblooded as she really was, and that was an insult to all cold-blooded species out there. Her hawk-like features and piercing eyes, that curl of the lips, it seemed an archetype for the ruthless 'get it done' sort of soldier.

And she was an L2. This did not bother him, but it was good to know. Just in case there ever came a time when she and Shepard got into a fight. He was not sure he could play referee, being more inclined to join Shepard and tag team Rogers. Not a fair fight, but neither was a biotic against an Infiltrator.

"I understand losing soldiers, and I understand sometimes you can't avoid it, but killing the prisoners may have damned hundreds of people…" Shepard grit her teeth; she had not meant to say it, but the grim declaration came out. "She's one you want to keep in front of you."

"You sound like you know her pretty well," Alenko noted as Shepard sat down on Roger's vacated stool.

Shepard checked for eavesdroppers before leaning towards Alenko. "Several months before I was assigned to the _Normandy_, I had the distinct impression I was being observed, vetted, and rated for something. Next thing I know, I'm on the _Normandy_ without any of the usual procedures. I wasn't the only one being looked over, Commander Sheffler, you know, from Akuze?" Alenko nodded, he had heard of Sheffler, but never met the man. "He, Rogers and I were all there. I think all being considered for Spectre candidacy. Good thing Nihlus' taste wasn't all in his mouth." Shepard ordered an Astro-Fizz, and when the bar tender went to fetch it, she addressed Alenko again, "This is, of course, between you, me, and the wall."

"Sure," Alenko nodded before considering his own soft drink. Thank goodness Nihlus had good taste. If Udina had any place in the rating of candidates, Alenko felt sure the ambassador would have wanted Rogers. He would have used her, she would have used him, and they would have made no pretenses about it.

Udina understood slippery people, being one himself…but a slinky little thing like Rogers ended up having more teeth than people expected when she finally burned her bridges.

Or nuked them.

-J-

*For those of you who don't know, it's a Frank Herbert's "Dune" (the book) reference. I didn't realize NFL had this concept in common with 'Dune' until well after I started writing it.


	90. Ice Cream

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams had to shake her head at what chance could contrive. Everyone left three ship at different times…and yet here most of them were.

A little liberty on the Citadel had contrived to bring half the aliens aboard the _Normandy_, as well as the Commander and the Lieutenant (as well as herself) to the same little ice cream place in the Markets.

Even Wrex had put in an appearance—though she had not hailed him, and he had not stuck around. She still marveled at the idea that the krogan could _like_ anything as innocuous and 'un-tough' as ice cream. Or maybe it _was_ a tough thing after all; she certainly had no use for pistachio ice cream, Wrex's flavor of choice.

Williams did _not_ trust green ice cream, minty or otherwise. There was just something wrong there.

She certainly never, upon setting out, expected to find herself sitting with two of her ground team teammates, Garrus and Dr. T'Soni. She still eyed Liara askance—but as suspicion was part of her nature, maybe it was not a bad thing. She would spot anything underhanded or double-dealing before anyone else. At the moment, though, Williams had to admit she had seen eight-year-olds look more devious (or treacherous) than that asari.

Then again…the doc was still a kid by asari standards…

Williams shook her head. This was off-duty and the doctor was surrounded. Even if Liara _was _one of the bad guys, a sleeper on Benezia's behalf, what was she going to do in a situation like this, in a place like this?

Still, thinking back to one of Lynne's remarks (or was it Sarah's?) this could be a golden opportunity. Supposedly you could tell a lot about a person from his or her favorite flavor of ice cream.

Knowing Shepard and Alenko a little, Williams decided to give the theory a try…what could it hurt? However, Alenko was still in line, so she started with the asari, partly Liara's ice cream was as blue as she was. It was a weird flavor and, according to the Liara herself, something native to her homeworld, very sweet and absolutely delicious.

In those exact words.

Garrus, also, met with quick assessment, but more puzzlement. "What _is_ that?" she asked, pointing to the dubiously screaming red ice cream—stacked three scoops high and covered with something that looked like peanuts with warts.

"Spicy…" If the turian had had lips, Williams would have bet he would smack them, but he nibbled on his ice-cream with its kelp-green cone happily.

Williams did not love turians any more now than she ever had…but she grudgingly had to admit that Garrus was certainly not the worst.

"Why's it _green_?" Shepard pointed to the cone, eyes narrowed with suspicion at the strange color, blissfully unaware of the line of ice cream across her upper lip.

Williams forced herself not to grin at this—oh for a camera!

Garrus noticed and, after he tapped his talon against his equivalent of an upper lip (directing the attention of the whole group, now including Alenko, to Shepard's upper lip), Liara wordlessly handed Shepard a paper napkin.

Shepard looked at it, her eyes widened as she realized why everyone was suddenly looking at her, and she quickly wiped her lip free of the ice cream mess. "…thanks."

"Of course, Commander." Liara went placidly back to her own ice cream—meticulously careful to avoid ice cream mustaches.

"Color-coded, so no one gives a turian something dangerous…or the humans." Garrus resumed both the answer and nibbling on his ice cream. "I don't think you'd like this much, Commander."

"Uh-huh." Shepard nodded before a drip of ice cream finished its descent from her scoop, landing in a puddle between her thumb and forefinger. In true marine fashion, when it came to ice cream, she did not use a napkin to clear it off.

Shepard was not the _only_ one with ice cream on her face during this informal get-together, but her ice cream was _green,_ which made the ice cream mustache almost grotesque. Minty-chip in a chocolate shell on a waffle cone. Of course the ice cream had to have chocolate to be any good.

What Williams did not understand was the Astro-Fizz beside Shepard's elbow.

Who drank soda with ice cream? The soda fizzed weird, and neither would taste right in the company of the other. Of course, Williams reflected, some people—though not she, herself—liked ice cream floats. Maybe that was it.

Williams took a slurp her own coffee chocolate chunk with sprinkles. The sprinkles were more for aesthetic reasons than anything else, a memory of the good old days when the Williams Girls—as they were known—hit the local ice cream parlors. They had, for a joke, always gone with sprinkles. She could not remember why; it was just the way they did things.

Williams eyes moved slowly to Alenko, sitting on her left, Shepard's right. She had him figured, initially, as a vanilla man, but was wrong completely.

Ginger. _Ginger_ flavored ice cream…she could not imagine how _that_ had happened, but that was, apparently, his flavor. No sprinkles, nothing funny, but she _thought_ when he was at the counter she saw him eying the gummy bears askance.

The mere thought of this made her want to laugh into her ice cream. She could imagine little colorful gummy bears dancing around on the ginger ice cream. The combination sounded like gourmet suicide…but it _was_ funny.

"Okay, Williams—you want to share the joke?" Shepard's voice recalled Williams to herself, and she realized, belatedly, that she was both ignoring her ice cream, half suspended to her mouth, and was grinning evilly, while still watching Alenko.

"Sprinkles gone to your head, Williams?" he asked, unruffled by her expression.

"Fond memories of the family." Close enough, and not quite a lie. No, she decided. Telling a lot about people by their _ice cream_ did not work.

But it was still fun to think about.


	91. Chocolate

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Chocolate was a girl thing. It was hard-wired into female humans, so they were born addicted to it. Williams nodded in agreement with her own assessment. She could not vouch for chocolate and aliens, but it did not sound illogical. Maybe a little—a lot—biased and not empirical information or on personal observations, but as an opinion…well, opinions were personal, and it was not as though she went around spouting this one.

The air of the tiny little shop situated snugly between a jewelry store and a department store was thick with the smell of chocolate. It was hard to tell which of the three buildings established itself first, the sweet shop (which would draw customers who would then trickle in to look at jewelry or clothes), or the mainstream shops (which would mean lots of hungry shoppers). Shopping at a mall, or places like these usually made Williams irritable…but chocolate always soothed that.

"Can I get one of those?" Strawberry-orange was a new one, especially with a choice of dark or milk chocolate…was that white chocolate over there?

Oh, she hoped no one ever saw her like this. Shepard knew (and kind of understood) about the poetry, but this would ruin her reputation as one of the toughest, most gung-ho marines on board that ship. And she had some serious competition, too.

But who cared, when there was a bewildering assortment of truffles, bonbons, and little round things, _all_ chocolate coated and most filled with something interesting (if not necessarily tasty)? In many cases 'something' was…more chocolate. Was there anything better?

Williams grinned at the memory of Chocoholics Anonymous—family lingo for 'the great chocolate binge'. It was amazing how one little sliver of sweetness in a galaxy of sweets could bring a family together.

The bells, the very old-fashioned bells, over the door jingled politely. "And let me have two of the apple pie…" Was what chocolate _really_ chocolate? It did not seem so to Williams. It was still _good _but was it _really_ chocolate…did it really matter, in the grand scheme of things? Two golf ball sized confections went into the box.

"We'll be right with you," the manager declared cheerfully to the other patron.

Some of the alien stuff looked pretty exotic…but Williams was not sure she wanted to be brave when it came to new foods. Vakarian liked spicy ice cream, after all…on a green cone. That was weird.

"Take your time," Williams' blood went cold, "I'm in no hurry."

Turning slowly, Williams found a freckle-faced asari standing a comfortable distance away from her, peering at the glass cases. "Doctor?"

Hearing Williams, Dr. T'Soni turning to face her. "Chief Williams," but the kid (hundred-odd years old or not, she was still a kid to Williams) sounded surprised and looked uncomfortable.

"What are you doing here?" Williams could not stop the stupid question. She knew Dr. T'Soni could walk wherever she wanted, but the shock of seeing her _here_, of all places, stripped away reason. Shepard was always leery of asari, even if she worked not to show it. Williams did not bother—they always gave the impression of reading minds, and she liked her private thoughts kept just that. Private.

No one was _that_ perceptive.

"The same thing you are, Chief." Dr. T'Soni answered primly. "I am still unused to these long-duration voyages…" Williams did not snort: Dr. T'Soni was in for a rude awakening if she thought these little jaunts from place to place were _long_. "…and I thought it prudent not to run out of…ooh..." her voice trailed over, as she padded over to one of the cases housing more 'exotic' sweets.

The manager cleared her throat, shaking Williams out of her blank mindset. Williams hurriedly finished stocking her box, and paid for it. She paused on her way out, though, at Dr. T'Soni's words. "Make mine a double?" She sounded like she was ordering shots of booze. Dr. T'Soni quickly filled the first box with things she was familiar with, judging by the speed at which her requests came. Then she padded over to the 'human' flavors, peering at them speculatively.

She smiled sweetly at the manager—or so Williams guessed—and seemed on the verge of asking a question, before she turned, giving Williams a shy, querying sort of look.

Oh, it was the puppy-dog look…

Of all the aliens, Dr. T'Soni was the most uncomfortable in shipboard surroundings. She certainly did not fit in well, not being much of a field agent. Her area of expertise did not overlap with any else's, though Shepard did her best to include the asari, it sometimes seemed like an uphill battle.

"So…what is good here?" Dr. T'Soni fidgeted uncomfortably, unsure if Williams was in a mood to be sociable with an alien.

Williams struggled to keep her xeno-cautions to herself, and succeeded by answering civilly. "Just about everything." There, not very helpful perhaps, but certainly civil.

"Oh…" Dr. T'Soni's face fell, her attempt to start a conversation having failed. She promptly turned back to examine the sweets behind the glass again.

Williams grimaced inwardly, before stepping up to the case. "Those are good." She pointed to the apple pie truffles in their white chocolate shell. "You're not allergic to anything, are you?"

Dr. T'Soni considered, then shook her head slowly, "I do not think so. Our species are both levo-amino based…"

Williams eyes glazed over. And she thought Alenko and Shepard talking geek was bad.

Dr. T'Soni noticed, cutting her explanation short. "I do not think so…but I have been wrong before."

Well, with the amount of time she spent in the back office of the medbay, Dr. Chakwas was nearly always close at hand. "Well...if you want something crunchy, those're okay…those are crunchy and sticky."

Dr. T'Soni pondered, her eyes sweeping over the vast array. "Perhaps I should just take one of each?" she mused, tapping a finger against her lips.

Williams concluded that chocolate addiction wasn't just a human thing.


	92. Picks

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Alenko silently changed into his under armor, then made his way down to the cargo bay. Chairman Burns of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee for Transhuman Studies was little more than a name and a face with the label of 'political climber'. Someone out to make a name for himself.

_Now_, he was being held hostage by disgruntled (not unjustly so, though Alenko could not excuse their actions) L2s.

Alenko wanted to see his presence on this mission as implicit sign of trust on Shepard's part, taking an L2 to fight other L2s. Several former COs had not wanted him mixing with non-Alliance biotics. He understood the caution, but it was still a slight on his integrity, though like a good soldier he kept his mouth shut.

Shepard prodded him in the small of his back with her finger, prompting him to let her zip him into the mesh underlay of his armor, and clapped him on the shoulder to signify he was good to go.

She grunted as Wrex poked _her_ in the back with a stubby finger. Shepard ran a hand along her neck, ensuring that no stray wisps of hair got caught in the zipper's teeth. Wrex tugged the zipper pull up, and then absently brushed a few flakes of cornstarch from Shepard's shoulder. He looked irritated, as though he was babysitting, but the gesture surprised Alenko.

Wrex and Shepard had unspoken understandings about a great many things, but there was never anything more than that respect between them. You'd almost think that Wrex _liked_ Shepard, instead of just respecting her…almost.

Alenko flopped on the bench, glad to have something else to mull over, besides the ethics and procedures involved in using biotics to fight other biotics. The bottom line was that he was Alliance. He'd made his choice and he was going to stick with it, no matter what.

Some people, though, did not take his assurance as fact.

Alenko caught Wrex looking past Shepard…right at him.

Alenko looked away. He wasn't sure _where_ he stood with the krogan, except that the krogan seemed to hold a general disdain for him. Well, the feeling was absolutely mutual, and if he wound up picking shotgun shot out of Shepard, he was going to get a little hostile himself.

…where did _that_ come from? Trying to justify it purely as a medic's prerogative, the argument sounded somehow…_hollow_.

"So, you're not going to tell me not to shoot everyone? Or anyone?" Wrex asked Shepard dryly, charging his shotgun.

"That would be like inviting you to my house and telling you to stay out of my fridge," Shepard shook her head as she checked her shields a second time, before checking her weapon. "I _am_ telling you not to shoot anyone if I'm still negotiating. But by all means, feel free to stand there and look menacing."

"Heheh—there you go," Wrex elbowed Shepard, hard. Flailing, she stumbled towards Alenko.

"Easy…" Alenko caught Shepard by the arm, helping her regain her balance more quickly than if she was allowed to wobble unaided. She would never _fall_, but still. He did not say anything to the krogan, though he was thinking 'was that _really_ necessary?'.

Wrex still wore an unidentifiable look on his froglike features that _might _pass for a grin, but the joke was lost on Alenko.

Shepard gently shook Alenko off her arm once she was steady with an absent 'thanks', the better to scowl at Wrex. "Thanks Wrex, you're a real doll."

It worked better for some than for others_, _but _this_ was the way to deal with Wrex. It was all about sarcasm, and not taking anything Wrex said personally.

Wrex laughed, though Alenko had the impression only Shepard, of all the people on this ship, could say that and get a laugh. "You're not fooling anyone Shepard."

Shepard beamed at him, though as to what bit of sneakiness he was referring she had no idea. She was planning to use him as a battering ram, certainly, but apart from that… "Yeah—and we both know why."

Alenko could not work out if he had missed something or not, but decided he probably had…

"Hmph. She's still got you beat, Lieutenant—better pray you stay on the same side."

"That was my line, but all right." Alenko adjusted one of his boots, rolling his eyes as he did so. Maybe it really was good to bring Wrex along on this one: the krogan obviously needed more to do.

Wrex got to his feet, armor clunking as he did so. "Well, let's go make some corpses."

"That's the spirit." Shepard gave Alenko a meaningful look of exaggerated long-suffering.

He didn't laugh, but it was an effort. Extensive practicing on focus and self-control gave the impression he had little or no sense of humor. He was not sure how Shepard bypassed these long-standing practices, but she did. In a lot of ways it was…nice.

It would be nicer if there wasn't a homicidal krogan involved, but you couldn't have everything.

He clamped down on this thought as well. They were about to enter a possibly—no _probably_—hot situation. This was no time to get distracted. _Focus, self-control, you know the drill._

Shepard drummed her fingers on her elbow. Her infectious fidgety-ness caused Alenko to miss his port, the connection clanking and skipping across the surface to poke him in the back of the neck. Once he had it in, he found Shepard watching him thoughtfully.

Previous experience explained this: she was having second thoughts, worrying about a conflict of interest in taking one biotic to deal with others. His stomach sank as the taste of indignation and bile rose. He had not expected such a thing from her. Quietly, he addressed the issue he perceived. "If you'd rather take someone else…"

Shepard's genuine shock melted into puzzlement at where _that_ question came from, then distaste as she apparently answered herself. "I picked _you, _Lieutenant."

Simple as that, reassuring, and confident.


	93. BustedUp Ride

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard scowled blackly as she came out of her quarters. To her left the stupid panel once again made a show of flickering and fluttering as though housing a dying firefly. She pursed her lips, giving the malfunctioning hunk of junk the same homicidal look she once reserved for batarian scumbags. Despite the lack of use it saw these days, the look had lost none of its potency, and would have struck almost any private in the service stock-still in his or her tracks.

The panel was fritzing _again_. _Again _it was fritzing!

With a grunt of disgust and determination, she yanked the faceplate off to reveal the wiring and 'guts'. Hadn't Alenko _just_ finished fixing this thing?

_Blast these bugs_… Why was the thing malfunctioning? An outsider might think Alenko didn't know his business...and she could vouch that he _did_.

She returned to her quarters, grabbing her small kit of tools from beneath her desk, and knelt before the panel. Enough was enough. She would strip this thing down to its _risers_—to use the antiquated computer repair jargon—to find out _why_ it refused to work and _stay_ working.

Her mental grumbling lasted until she groped for one of the screwdrivers from her kit, only to have the screwdriver slipped under her groping hand. Her fingers stopped suddenly at the foreign item attached to her screwdriver. Shepard put a hand on the frame of the panel to brace herself as she tried to visualize what she could not see, before…

"What the...ow! Kssss!" Shepard jerked to find out who slipped up to her, cracking her head savagely against the inside of the panel.

She pulled out of the panel, to sit on her backside, rubbing the knot forming on her head.

Alenko sat on his heels, watching her progress with his usual expression of benignity. "It's a retaining bolt—it keeps vibrating loose. You'll need that screwdriver."

Alenko would not admit it, but he had walked in on Shepard when she was both oblivious to other human presence and in a position that showed off some of her more feminine curves. It was only a moment of distraction, but he felt grateful to know what was in the panel. It gave him a reason to be wasting time over here.

"No it's not—the bolt's still in place. Your fix is holding." At least, Shepard assumed the new bolt (it didn't match the rest of the fixtures in the panel) was part of Alenko's fix.

"Good. So if it's not the bolt, what is it?"

"There's a pin, the thing isn't the right size for the fitting—it's too small."

"Amazing what kind of trouble a tiny little eight of an inch can cause."

She took it and disappeared, before giving a huff of disgust. "I can tighten this sucker all day, it's not going to..." Silence descended, punctuated only by the sound of fingers drumming. "Chewing gum."

"Ma'am?" Alenko's eyebrow shot up. Chewing gum?

"Chewing gum. You use the gum to keep stuff from shaking loose on tractors. It's not a permanent fix, but it'll hold long enough for you _get_ the right stuff. Use the cheap stuff...you know, goes to cardboard in about three minutes?"

"What's this? Tech social?" William's voice demanded. She leaned on the panel from the other side, regarding Alenko and Shepard. Birds of a feather.

"Williams, you chew gum, right?" Shepard asked, appearing before Williams, speculation and geekish tendencies all over her face.

"Yeah, why?" She had the stuff sent back from _Earth_, to get the exotic flavors she liked.

"You chewing any now?" Perhaps a fix for this stupid panel was even closer to hand than Shepard originally thought. She vanished back into the panel, squinting in the semi-darkness. "That could work..."

"Sure…" Being off duty, Williams popped the gum in question. Hadn't Alenko just _fixed_ that panel?

"Hand it over." Shepard's hand appeared, twisting this way and that way like an old-fashioned communications dish searching for a signal.

"I'm sorry?"

"You use the gum to keep stuff from shaking loose on tractors." Alenko answered, still not quite believing this. Chewing gum was not even heat resistant—what good could it be on a tractor?

Williams scowled: what did the _city boy_ know about _tractors_? Still, she took her gum out and handed it to Shepard, who made no remarks about it being 'gross', but stuck the gum wherever she needed it with a satisfied grunt. "You know the brass'll go nuts when they find out this place is held together with omnigel and chewing gum, right?"

"Then they should have made sure they used the right fixtures," Shepard responded grimly. "Right Alenko?"

Alenko did not smile, though he would have liked to. "Sounds reasonable."

"Besides, they won't find out if you don't tell them." Shepard reappeared. "Thanks, Williams."

"No problem." Williams leaned on the cabinet over the panel, tapping the toe of one boot thoughtfully on the floor. "Fixing tractors, huh?"

"Farmgirl." Shepard responded, sticking the gum to the inside of the panel as she continued attending to the issue. Her roots never showed as much as they did now.

"Is _that_ why you're so good with a shotgun?" Williams' tone was joking.

Shepard stilled; with her head hidden as it was, she might even have given a cold or dark look in Williams' direction. If she did, no one would ever know.

"No," Shepard impersonal answer seemed to refer to an even in someone else's life, "that came later. Still, it comes in handy." And with that she was back to normal.

Well, Alenko knew about personal ghosts.

"Ugh, what does _this _look like to you?" Shepard reappeared, resting one elbow on the top of the panel, holding up a bent cotter pin.

Williams carefully pulled a black bobby pin out of her regulation bun. Shepard with grim amusement, freed a pin identical to the one Williams held and the bent one in her hand from her own hair.


	94. Embarrassing

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The mess hall of the _SSV Normandy_ once again contained the late evening conversation group—Shepard, Alenko, and Williams. It had become more or less habit to coagulate as able, usually at mealtimes since they worked the same shift, and then again before bedtime. It certainly had an effect on the cohesiveness of the ground team, and left Williams at ease with the two officers.

Thank goodness neither was particularly rigid about propriety. Alenko admitted it was not a big focus at any point in his life before the alliance—though one could not call him lax when it came to anything else in the rule book. He remained a comfortably informal individual.

Shepard did not get too wound up about propriety either, though generally her reputation and accomplishments earned her more than the bare minimum of respect. Shepard would rather have cohesion and trust between her ground team's members than needless 'yes ma'am, no ma'am, three bags full, ma'am'.

Which left Williams a third wheel in a nerd convention, and the most aware of rank and regulation of the three.

Tonight's social pool had expanded, with Shepard having somehow coaxed Liara out of the medical bay. Shepard sat fiddling with her omni-tool—Williams suspected she was playing some weird three-dimensional number game, while Alenko had his deck of cards spread out solitaire fashion, a datapad by his left hand for keeping score.

And yet neither seemed to have missed a single detail, and Liara listened with polite attention, making Williams nervous, as though the asari were proctoring a class and not joining in a BS session. "So there I am, on Titan, and thinking, 'wow, this is the first time _anyone's_ set foot here…'" Small grins from the marines. Both remembered their first extra terrestrial spacewalk. "Next thing _I _know, Gunny Ellison is shouting at me to 'quit your goldbricking' and gives me the boot. I fall _face first_ out of the lander _right _into the mud." Williams slapped the back of one hand into the other to emphasize the 'splat'. "Couldn't see much of anything for the rest of the mission."

Shepard exchanged a smirk with Alenko, which caused Williams, in turn, to make a face. Plainly no one else had landed face first in the mud on _their_ first spacewalk. Still, at least her story had novelty value.

"Is it common to exchange tales of failure and embarrassment among humans? Or just among soldiers?" Liara asked, her hands wrapped around her cup of tea.

All three humans looked over at her, the general agreement of 'yeah, sure' spoken at once.

"Nothing _embarrassing_ about it," Shepard shrugged, going back to her puzzle. If she could only figure out where this pesky nine went… "I dropped a building once. Heheh, with me still in it."

The others gaped as Shepard—with a small 'aha'—found the place for the nine.

"May I ask _why_?" Williams asked as Alenko peeked at a card when he thought no one was looking. Well, it was his game. Besides, she did not know _anyone_ who did not cheat at solitaire.

"Faulty detonator. The long range was shot," Shepard answered abstractedly, looking over Alenko's head unseeingly. "It was full of batarians."

Liara shifted: Shepard's drift contained a mustard yellow vein of dislike, of hatred that had dried up and cracked over the years. It wasn't gone, but it was no longer a driving factor.

Alenko nodded, distractedly. That _was_ Shepard, through and through, but dropping a building on one's own head was going a little far. "Nice one, Grace…what do you do for an encore?"

The thought should never have passed his lips but, as happened uncomfortably often, it had. Not in a whisper but as an audible comment. Alenko wanted to close his eyes and scrunch up his face—apart from not wanting to damage any tendrils of friendship which might exist between Shepard and himself, habit dictated that he should not speak so to a higher-ranked officer.

Nevertheless, he forced himself to unwaveringly meet her gaze.

Shepard, glad to see Alenko relaxing around people in general, considered for a brief moment. Although he did seem to stick his foot in his mouth about half as often as he spoke, it was rather endearing. "Well," she answered, looking up at him speculatively, "It's hard to top, but I suppose there _was _this one time I helped set off a volcano...and then biffed the extraction."

Williams gave a titter that still contained a fair amount of nervousness. That was something never to forget, or to be forgotten...

...but to call it _embarrassing_? That was, perhaps, the real joke.

"Practice makes perfect," Shepard teased, giving Alenko's booted foot a nudge under the table.

Alenko shook his head slowly, but his smile lingered. The surge of feeling hero-like still echoed in his chest whenever he thought about Therum.

Liara freed a hand from her mug to rest her chin on her knuckles. There it was again, one of those odd moments when Shepard and Alenko's drifts seemed to synchronize. It was a balance she had yet to find anywhere else among the crewmen. There was cooperation, there was certainly a balancing of personalities, and a great deal of being on the same page.

Yet, it left her feeling embarrassed when she paid it any attention, as though she had barged in on something rather private without realizing what she was barging in _on_. No, it was as though she had trespassed upon something far more than merely 'private'.

It was partly this discomfort that prompted her to join in the conversation. "I mis-dated an artifact by about two thousand years," she offered. When the drift at the table dampened, she realized that embarrassing stories in this context were not just _any_ embarrassing stories. Talk about embarrassing…she gave an uneasy giggle. "Of course, this _is_ coming from the one who got herself trapped in a Prothean security field…"

The table's general drift pulsed back into varicolored amusement.


	95. Relay Rob's

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Shepard inhaled deeply as she stepped into the small establishment in the lower wards. Smells of cooking meat, rich barbecue sauce, and fond memories washed over her—along with the smell of beer, wood smoke, and artificial grass.

Ignoring the funny looks she was getting from Williams and Alenko, she walked up to the attendant. "Welcome to Relay Rob's, home of the Relay Ribs!"

Shepard listened indulgently through the pitch before requesting table—as opposed to placing an order for carry out. She had the spiel memorized, and didn't need it. She knew what she wanted: a booth for the three of them to sit in, an order of tater babies to split and all the ribs Rob's could cook. With sauce on the side, because Relay Rob's made their own sauce on location and no amount of credits could procure the secret recipe...

...which meant no learning to properly cook ribs herself. Without the sauce, there was no point.

She'd tried.

Firmly ensconced in a corner table—so all three marines could sit with their backs to the wall—Shepard settled into the padded bench. "I _knew _there had to be a Relay Rob's around here." Out on Arcturus, Relay Rob's was _the_ place to go to dine, if you didn't want (or couldn't use) the O Club, or the NCO Club. Here, it was a hole in the wall place, sandwiched between two run-down buildings who undoubtedly got far less business than the home of the Relay Ribs.

And Shepard loved Relay Ribs. What wasn't to love?

Alenko shifted in his seat, watching the teeming restaurant as music poured from a broken speaker over the babble of diners.

There was a strange, somewhat familiar, but very artificial smell in the air. It reminded him of something, he ought to be able to place it, but for the life of him, he couldn't. But at least the lights didn't blink, flash, pulse, or glow softly. This was a place where you could see your plate and everything on it.

"What is that smell? It smells like..." Williams frowned. What _did_ it smell like? The usual word (accurate or otherwise when taken literally) inserted as a placeholder neither applicable, nor _accurate_…and now was a time for accuracy. Or the question would keep her up all night.

"It's _supposed_ to be grass." Shepard inserted blandly, as a waiter came to take their order. "You know: barbecue out on the lawn?"

Williams crossed her legs and arms, scowling. Artificial grass? She wondered if the person who thought that gimmick up wasn't using grass _himself_—albeit grass of a different sort.

Here was an ironclad reason to lobby for fewer ribs and more Thai food: there was less grass involved. Alenko might second her, if enough Thai peppers were forthcoming.

The waiter staggered back after a respectable amount of time with a plate of ribs as big as a small rucksack frame.

"The tater babies'll be out in another minute—we had to do them up fresh. Anything else, ma'am?" The waiter heaved the tray onto the table, setting a bottle of sauce beside it.

Shepard beamed at the ribs like a mad scientist contemplating her latest plan for world domination. "Just a straw."

Williams arched her eyebrows, giving Shepard an incredulous look which Shepard ignored.

Alenko ignored Shepard's comment. He was a kindred spirit with nerd glasses, why shouldn't the lady have a straw, if she wanted one? The waiter apparently recognized Shepard—who wouldn't?—and wasn't paying attention to anyone else. Alenko cleared his throat. "And ketchup. Please."

Shepard's eyes flicked up, her lopsided smirk of neutrality widening into a genuine smile. Alenko sitting comfortably and requesting ketchup of a very stringy waiter (who looked a bit intimidated by the table of marines) reminded her too much of what the tiger said to the gazelle.

The funny part was that Alenko probably didn't mean an ounce of imitation in the words. Or maybe he was familiar with the old joke, because his grin turned a little sheepish, then almost...devilish.

It was an interesting look, which was why Shepard struck up a new track of conversation fairly quickly. No room for speculation, no room for curiosity about this sudden devilish streak. "Hey," she elbowed Alenko gently.

"Huh?"

"You remember those nasty riblets…?"

"Ugh, those knockoff rib sandwiches…" Alenko shuddered as Shepard nodded, then on a burst of inspiration, "You _know_ it wasn't beef. Or pork."

"What do _you_ think it was?" Williams asked dryly. The rib sandwiches were on the way out when Alenko went through basic, sometime after Shepard, and were all the way out by the time Williams went through.

"Varren." Alenko glanced at Shepard.

"I thought it tasted familiar. Cooked and drowning in sauce…but familiar. But this is better," Shepard pointed as the straw, ketchup and tater babies were deposited on the table. The waiter got smiles from the ladies, but didn't hang around. Maybe he thought Spectre-grade trouble would break out if he stood too close to them.

If Alenko had no qualms about chowing down in public. Biotics were known for needing high caloric intakes, and it was accepted that they tended to pack away groceries like teenage boys. There was no self-consciousness lingering from the early days.

In fact, it was almost funny watching Shepard eat like a biotic. Within moments she had racked up a pile of stripped rib bones with no more thought than she would give to shoveling down rations in the mess.

But the barbecue sauce getting all over her mouth and chin was not only endearing—and Alenko gave himself a sharp mental slap.

Paying attention to the distribution of sauce directed his thoughts along an idle stream of creative ways to get the sauce _off_ her mouth. He didn't navigate himself out of those dangerous and deceptively calm waters quickly enough, for Williams rapped on the table. "Earth to El-Tee…you need some alone time with those tater babies, or what?"


	96. Obsession

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Wrex sat in irritable silence, cleaning his shotgun. It was one of the few fastidious things the krogan did. Usually he resented anything requiring so much dexterity, but as he would not let the human Chief touch his shotgun, it meant he had to clean it.

Which was just the way Wrex liked it—though stubby fingers _did_ make it a drill in patience, as well as an irritation. He had twice as much patience as the usual krogan—why did he need to learn more?

The worst of this trip (besides a lack of things to shoot) was the gnawing, pestering need which would _not _go away. He never noticed it until he found himself contained on the _Normandy._ He could have worked it off through a couple decent fistfights, but there was little chance of even one of those, let alone 'fistfights' in the plural.

He didn't like it, but what could he do? At least the system still dictated that to the victor went the spoils, and this venture was, so far, just as lucrative as any other random contract. More so, since the guns and armor got written off on Shepard's Spectre account.

That was decent of her, and if all she wanted was krogan backup when bullets started flying, that was fine. Of no other human would he have expected such a thing. Shepard spoke krogan when talking to a krogan ('do it, or I'll bust you up'), turian when talking to a turian ('it's the right thing to do, not necessarily the fastest') and techno-babble to the geeks.

It wasn't right for a tough little thing like Shepard to be so embarrassingly brainy when everyone was looking. If she kept it under her hat, it would be all right.

Wrex shuddered as he dropped a spring. Damn. He'd done it again—blast these humans with a heavy cannon. It was their fault. Their bad habits had already rubbed off on him, but now the bad habit asserting itself was making him clumsy.

Not that krogan were particularly dexterous to begin with…

The sound of Wrex's flat teeth grinding was audible three feet away.

Williams, sitting on the far side of the weapons maintenance bench glared at Wrex out of the corner of her eyes. It was uncomfortable enough when Wrex decided to cast bad vibes around himself—doubly so when he had to do it sitting feet away. "You're going to screw up your teeth."

"Mind your own business." It was soft-spoken for Wrex. Except for his ingrained dislike of just about everyone—it kept killing them when business arrangements came to a close easy—he would have liked the Chief a little bit. She was tough, and she and Shepard both gave a fight a distinctive, new flavor.

"Pffh."

Forget the human. They were annoying anyway: always with the 'why' questions. Even the ones who didn't have the guts to ask them, you could tell they had plenty of questions. Humans always did—maybe that was why they asked so many. Short life spans, yes, but they should _save_ some questions for the next twenty generations.

Wrex snapped a component of his shotgun into place with unwonted vehemence. The gnawing obsession, the one thing he had in common with this crew, was starting to get to him. He should never have let it happen, but there you go. Bad food, bad habits…as if he were one to accuse someone else of bad habits.

But what did a krogan want to be fair or consistent for? Might as well ask Shepard or that lieutenant of hers to hand over their omni-tools. Wrex glowered. The embarrassment of having his biotic reach come up short, and _then _to have a human step up and do it successfully left an unusually bad taste in his mouth.

All that bad-tasting stuff humans liked left a bad taste in his mouth as well, but a krogan knew to take you could get. He could not wait to get to a place which catered to mercs of all races. He wouldn't touch that asari crap with a twenty foot pole, but a taste of home—minus the nuclear radiation—would be good.

He finished assembling his shotgun. Human-class jokes. The day had hit an all-time low. Unless he found a reason to employ his shotgun, he might set a new record for bad days.

Getting up, he stalked over to his locker, putting the shotgun in it. It was, he scowled as he closed the compartment, time to relieve the irritation caused by the gnawing obsession. He hated the idea, but what could he do? His hands shook and he did not have the fortitude to fight the obsession right now.

The side effects of the obsession made irritation with lack of progress worse.

No one was used to seeing Wrex in the mess hall, but when he stalked in most people backed up, giving the krogan a wide berth. Wrex walked up to the counter upon which rested the coffee pot—thankfully full. He reached under the counter for a standard issue mug, wishing it was bigger. He filled it, opened his mouth and upended it without thinking, or attention to the fact the coffee was scalding hot.

Krogan were tougher than humans.

The caffeine began to work almost as once, as Wrex tossed back a second mug, his irritation and mild headache easing. Who would have thought anyone could get addicted to coffee so easily? Even the taste of this stuff was not enough of a turnoff to get him to go clean.

With a sigh he rinsed the cup and put it back under the counter. The crew would whine if he didn't.

That was annoying.

Turning he saw several of the humans gaping at him. "What?"

The irritation and 'I dare you to make something of it' attitude worked. Immediate responses of 'nothing' or expeditious retreats left Wrex smirking grimly.

The day was finally looking up.


	97. Coffee Mugs

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard could hardly pry her tired eyes open as she stumbled over to the counter where coffee mugs reposed, clean and ready for the day's work: someone had to motivate sleep-deprived marines. It was, the unbiased, logical part of her mind said, completely and entirely her fault. No conversation could or should be so scintillating that it necessitated staying up _that _late.

Especially a conversation about dumb things done at high school age. Like hijacking computers for mischievous but relatively benign purposes. Or Williams' contribution: a friend adept at getting her into trouble, and just as adept at talking them both back out of it. Alenko's won hands down: using the much despised and overly processed hamburger patties as 'footballs' in lunchtime games (which sounded less like football and more a cross of paper footballs, foosball, and table hockey).

_You are_ _a marine, and about to go on dut_y. _So_ please _act like it._ The logical part spoke loudly, trying and failing to drive away fuzzy-around-the-edges anecdotes from the night's conversation.

She wished it luck as she reached the counter where the glorious coffee machine (and its less glorious offering of low-quality caffeine) waited like good little marine aides.

Shepard smiled benignly: was it really crazy behavior to have one half of the brain lecturing the other half? Her hand moved automatically for her coffee mug. She was just hazy enough this morning to appreciate 'letting her hair down', instead of cringing at such familiarity when interacting with others.

She woke fully, with a start, as her hand found only empty rack. Her mug was missing. _Her mug was missing. Her _mug was _missing. _Just before she could start panicking—what was a marine without her morning coffee?—she spotted the anomaly.

A brown paper bag secured with deftly knotted string—which made her wonder who went to scout camp as a kid. The scout camp-attending individual plainly labeled the bag with her surname before securing it. The boy-scoutishness of the knot narrowed the field a bit, catching Shepard's curiosity.

"Mph." Williams moved around with half-closed eyes, unerringly finding her coffee mug. The grunt was meant to tell Shepard to stop hogging the coffee machine, and that it was inadvisable to drink it right from the pot.

Inadvisable because caffeine-denied marines were crankier than sleep-deprived marines. As Shepard should—and did—well know. So Shepard moved, picking up the mysterious parcel. It rattled a little, but not much, and the shape was just odd…

"Ugh…my geek-meter just pegged… can't you wait till you're on duty?" Williams slurred, perhaps assuming Shepard was regarding some geekish concern, before throwing herself into a seat. She slouched over her coffee, the better to inhale the fumes.

"Sorry, Chief. Geek is a condition, not a conditioned response," Alenko noted benignly as he joined the trio, looking marginally more alert than either of his dining companions.

"Morning," Shepard waved, though she had her back to Alenko, dexterity drained fingers struggling with the knot. Someone did _not_ want her to get into this…

"Commander…?" Williams frowned as Shepard struggled with something unseen on the counter. "…what are you doing?" Should she even be asking?

Shepard, realizing how weird it must look from the back, succeeded in slipping the tie off—taking part of the bag with it. Out came a bottle of Relay Rob's Secret Sauce—the coveted barbecue sauce. How the mysterious gift-giver got the bottle when she failed to acquire the recipe…

Shepard found a gap in her common sense. She should have just asked for a bottle, failing to get a copy of the recipe.

But the bottle, on its way out, clinked against something else. Setting the sauce aside Shepard found it had been sitting in a coffee mug. A new coffee mug. Glossy black, with _Relay Rob's, Home of the Relay Ribs _emblazoned in red around the red and white silhouette of a mass relay. Turning the mug, she found herself looking at a small tornado with hands and feet, which appeared to be throwing demolished rib bones out of its core.

Come to think of it, it reminded her of something contemporary to the scowling eyes on Williams' coffee mug.

There it was: it was a taz-something-ian devil. Ravenous appetite and, once food was brought, not very discerning. Shepard snickered—well, if the shoe fit. But who here knew about her Relay Rob's fixation, enough to know it was the _sauce_ she was after? She glanced over her shoulder, seeing Williams' puzzled expression…and the back of Alenko's head.

Quietly peering into the cabinet under the counter, she found her _El Alamein_ mug sitting out where she couldn't miss it if she looked. Shepard filled her mug, and sat down beside Alenko, who was diligently arranging his eggs—Alenko only played with this food when he was nervous.

Williams grinned at the sauce (ignoring the mug) as she looked at Alenko.

Shepard scooted the bottle of sauce towards him, knowing what Williams was thinking. If Alenko would put that toxic habanera stuff on his eggs...why not this stuff? "Would you like some for your eggs, Alenko?"

Alenko knew he couldn't maintain perfect anonymity about where the sauce and mug came from, but he now wished he'd found a less public way of leaving them out. "Nah, it's yours…" But he did wonder if it would improve the eggs.

"It tastes better when it's shared." Shepard gave the sauce another scoot. When Alenko reached over to acquiesce to her wish of sharing, she whispered, "Thank you," so softly he almost missed it.

Almost. The hitch in the motion of taking the bottle indicated her words reached their target.

"Well, _that_," Williams continued, not having heard or noticed Shepard's aside to Alenko, "certainly does you justice, Skipper."

Shepard turned the mug to admire the taz-thingy.

Alenko tucked into his eggs—slower than usual in order to actually _taste_ them, to decide if the secret sauce or the salsa worked better—to hide his smile.

-J-

Once more, Yosemite Sam and Taz the Tasmanian Devil belong to Warner Brothers.


	98. It Doesn't Matter

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

As much as Ambassador Udina disliked having Shepard in his office, Shepard could not help noticing how _often_ she found herself there. If he hated having her there it was nothing compared to how she felt.

If he did not exhaust her with his political agendas—though he never overtly _discussed_ these—he annoyed her with pointless tirades about how she was not doing her job properly or with demands for updates.

It was all she could do to wind him up so he lost his patience and let her get back to her job.

-J-

This was why Udina hated her visits so much—never mind the fact that he demanded them. Shepard simply, steadfastly refused to answer questions until he cornered her for her answer. It was hard to get her to divulge any information, since she refused to acknowledge him as part of her chain of command. Polite and annoying to the extreme, if the 'I'm sorry, I can give no information pertaining to the topic of discussion' failed, she fell back on her title of Spectre, tactfully reminding him where he fell in her _other _chain of command.

When Captain Anderson was there—and he usually was—Udina could count on no backup. Marines were clannish in a way politicians were not. He could not count on Anderson to _lean_ on Shepard and make her toe the line. In fact, the old soldier probably put Shepard up to half the crap she dished out and Shepard would only too happily walk off a cliff if Anderson told her to do it.

-J-

Today Anderson was not present, and the meeting without his mediating influence gave Udina an idea of just how accommodating Shepard thought herself. Usually she remained coolly polite and did not let him see that she hated his guts—or lack thereof. For Anderson's sake, she maintained a rigid control over what she thought and felt, imperfect but perceptible.

Today, she disliked him and it showed. Her foot tapped and she kept checking the clock on her omni-tool as though she had many better things to do than stand in this pointless meeting. "Ambassador," she finally spoke up, having had all she could take of this going-nowhere discussion. It was not _even_ a discussion. It was a slow day and Udina apparently wanted someone to listen to him talk; truth be told she had barely listened to a third of what he said. Apparently talking to himself was not enough, so he needed her ears. Unfortunately, she was shuffling, digging and beginning to worry: Saren had gone to ground, without so much as a peep. It might not concern _Udina_, but it concerned Shepard very much. No news, where the turian was concerned, was definitely bad news. "I do have things I need to do today. I am _not_ on liberty to waste time, and if I was, I wouldn't do it here. My marines are sitting outside this door, waiting for me to get out of this meeting so we can do the things we are paid to do…"

-J-

Udina shuddered. Shepard and her marines seemed to think they were paid to demolish the Citadel district by district—look at the wards! The bullet holes outside Chora's Den were _still there_. And not just the Citadel—that was just a start! He was still getting garbage from the Council about Therum, Dr. T'Soni's presence on Shepard's ship, and the turian Councilor was already voicing opinions about 'no confidence' in Shepard's Spectre hunt. If she only knew how much flak he deflected on her behalf...

-J-

"…so if you don't mind, I'd like to get on doing it. You wouldn't want them to get bored, now would you?" Shepard could not help that last twist of the knife. Captain Anderson was right: Udina had a lot of soft spots and his lack of understanding about marines left him wide open to discomfiture caused by an unknown.

The Captain really was _the_ person to have as a second mentor. He was politically savvy enough to know how to cope with people like Udina—without bullets—and articulate enough to pass the knowledge on.

Shepard could not call discomforting Udina fun, but grim satisfaction as she watched the slug squirm did not escape her. Her dismissal came quickly enough after this comment. If Udina thought _she_ was undisciplined, unpredictable and trigger happy, he held her marines in lower esteem—though wisely he did not share these impressions. He could insult her, or try to get under her skin, but criticizing her team was taboo.

It did not pay in the long run to start a meeting that way. Particularly if Anderson was not present—it was only when he wasn't that Udina realized how sharp Shepard's tongue really was, and how much of a rein she placed on it.

Stepping out into the corridor, where Alenko and Williams waited on the now very familiar bench, Shepard sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"Rough day, Skipper?" Williams' question did not need an answer, yet Shepard appreciated the tone in which it was uttered.

"Ugh." Shepard popped her back and neck, mindless of whether it caused anyone discomfort to hear the crackles and snaps. "You know, I look at the guy and all I can think is… _this doesn't matter_. Someone should put it to music."

"Udina's a slug—he can't help himself." Alenko did not mean it as an excuse, just an aspersion and his cohorts took it that way.

Williams took a more direct line of trying to restore the Skipper's spirits. Being mopey made a person slow on the draw and slow on the uptake. "You know, I can get him while he's in his office. Quick and painless…" Williams waved expressively as a wan smile appeared on Shepard's face. "Just say the word. Give me the sign. The wink, the nod, the nudge…"

"I get it, Chief," Shepard gave a wry laugh. "Nah, just…it doesn't matter.


	99. Teamwork

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"I thought you quit," Detective Chellick snorted, as Garrus strode into the office. Garrus was predictable in that he always seemed like energy barely contained – or at least, to another turian he seemed that way. "Get tired of running with the humans?" Chellick had nothing against humans. They, like every race, had their uses.

And not necessarily as someone to throw under the CRT car.

"I'm here about Jenna." Garrus responded without preamble, crossing his arms, his mandibles pulling close to his jaw.

Chellick's smile faded. "What about her?" Rita just could not keep her mouth shut. If anyone was going to get Jenna busted, it _would_ be the little sister.

"Come on, Chellick you know why I'm here, I know how you work. I want Jenna out of there," Garrus responded without heat, which surprised Chellick.

Maybe the humans were rubbing off on Garrus. Usually the younger turian would be shouting and running through tirades about right and wrong. If that kid ever stopped looking at the world as purely black and white, he would find things a whole lot easier. "It might seem cold, letting her take all those risks…"

-J-

"Calculated risks, yeah, I know," Garrus scowled. "She can't even shoot a gun! She's human, she's all…" Garrus flexed his talons, looking for a good word and failing to find one. "Soft." Shepard was too, come to think of it, but she wore armor so often it was easy to forget she was as breakable as any other human.

"I _am_ keeping an eye on her," Chellick raised his voice, so as to speak over Garrus, his mandibles flaring in impatience. "I've been doing this a long time, remember?"

"Remember Mark? You think he'd want his little girl getting hurt?" Garrus asked archly. Dammit, he really needed Shepard for this sort of negotiation…but Shepard had not been seen for more than five or ten minutes since she put the crew on a three-day pass. Something was definitely up; he hoped it was pertinent to the Saren-hunt.

"Look, she _volunteered_," Chellick growled, his patience wearing thin. "You know this job's not easy, and that it's usually unpleasant. I'll take help anywhere I can find it. If she's got it on her conscience to help…"

"Chellick, she's Mark's daughter. They'll find out eventually. Not everyone's as dumb as Fist. And then what? Your tails will blow their cover to save her life, firefights in the wards, all out assaults on…" he was quoting Udina, but the logical list of bad scenarios was making Chellick's luminous eyes glaze over.

-J-

"True," Chellick shook his head, stemming the flow of 'what ifs'. Then he shook it again as if to clear it. Damn, the kid was picking up new tricks…the humans _must_ be rubbing off on him. It wasn't a bad thing, just unexpected. And Garrus wasn't even shouting yet. Amazing. "Tell you what…" He had not _liked_ using a former coworker's daughter as an informant, but she'd insisted. Garrus probably knew that. "Since you're so concerned with Jenna's safety…let's work a deal."

"Still playing all the angles?" Garrus asked, though not as if disgruntled or accusing.

"There's no other way to play," Chellick waved his hands expansively. "You'll need a partner, and I want _them_ to do the talking. You sit back, and keep a lot quieter than you usually are."

"I'm not shouting yet," Garrus responded grimly.

"I'd noticed. The humans must be rubbing off on you. How's that going, incidentally?" Everyone knew Garrus had run away to join a human circus, headed by a Spectre. The stories got pretty wild from there on in.

"You'd like her. She thinks I need to settle down."

Galling as it was that it took a human to convince Garrus of this, at least he was learning. "So, you get yourself a partner, and you back them up. I'm trying to track down an illegal arms producer. I need some of their product."

"So have my associate play the buyer, I verify the goods, we bring them back and you…"

"…and I get Jenna out. I promise." Chellick shrugged.

"Why can't I do it alone?" It would be so much easier.

"Because as quiet as you are _now_, I know you. You're a loose cannon. I want my network to remain _intact_. So find someone _tactful_, who can keep their head down, and act fairly convincingly." Chellick advised.

-J-

Garrus' first thought was to appeal to Shepard. She was very decent, and would understand the necessity of getting Jenna out of there. Shepard had raided the place, she knew what kind of crap went on in there.

Unfortunately, Shepard was busy. Busy and unavailable, and part of his conscience twinged at having to ask her. Well, he would have to ask someone else, and that meant someone on the ground crew. Definitely not Wrex, Tali was with Shepard, Liara…

…could the asari even hold a gun? Which left the humans.

"So, say I do find someone…" Garrus prompted.

"Jenna's provided the mission critical intel. There's a seller here on the Citadel. Meet our man," Garrus noted Chellick scrupulously avoided giving the contact's name, "pick up the mods, and bring them back here. Hopefully that'll be enough for me to do what needs doing."

"Where do I find him?" Garrus asked.

"Am I to understand you've got a buddy for this?"

"I think I can find one," Garrus was not convinced of anything except that he had to try. For Jenna's, and Rita's sakes. It was enough motivation.

"It's a one-shot opportunity, Garrus." When Garrus nodded his comprehension, Chellick looked at his console. "I'll put the word out, and let you know when we've got a time and place. It shouldn't take long. Krogan aren't really patient."

Garrus nodded with the suspicion he would end up asking Williams. She seemed to be a little more tolerant of nonhumans in general but…thing like that didn't go away overnight. He would just have to hope Alenko was free.


	100. Hit the Wall

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus could do nothing else. He would rather ask Shepard, but the Commander was working against a wall of bureaucratic red tape and an army of pencil-pushers supposedly without the authority to paper whip something for a Spectre.

That left either Lt. Alenko or Chief Williams. In actuality, it just left Williams, because while Shepard was fond of dragging Alenko around, he was nowhere to be found today.

Garrus would have preferred to ask Alenko but he would have to settle for Williams and make the best of it—assuming he could convince her to help. Rita was counting on him; so was Jenna whether she admitted it to herself or not...not that she knew about his involvement

Yet.

He needed the extra hands and could not involve C-Sec, but he _could_ endure Williams' xeno-issues. Rumor had it those might be...easing. He would believe it when he saw it, but held onto the hope that she would be amiable, for the simple fact that Jenna and Rita were both human.

-J-

Shepard had the crew in a holding pattern, with permission to roam the Citadel in the off hours, on the stipulation they could be back within half an hour. It really meant eight hours of solitaire or BSing by the water cooler, since there was only so much to be done with the _Normandy_ in dock.

Williams suspected the nerds—Shepard had Alenko and Tali with her—were using the time spent waiting on various individuals to discuss nerd things

Williams did not feel much like playing tourist. Something was getting ready to happen. Her reluctance to wander off left her in the garage—mercifully krogan free—giving the rifles a good reworking. It soothed her nerves, the work being repetitious in nature.

Time to roam the Citadel was nice and everything, but didn't they have a rogue Spectre to be chasing down? She turned the rifle, her guts telling her that the chase was about to heat up again. She just...knew.

-J-

The elevator dinged after nearly an hour of quiet work, revealing Garrus. "Commander's not here," Williams declared as Garrus looked around, then headed straight for her.

"I'm not looking for the Commander…" Garrus responded, feeling so awkward that, if the situation weren't as dire as he believed it was, he would have just walked away.

Williams slid the last piece of the rifle back into place, then shouldered it. "So what're you looking for?" That was neutral, right? She wished he'd stop shifting around from foot to foot like that. It made her nervous. She had promised Shepard to try to get along with the aliens,a dn felt she had made strides in that direction...but he was making her nervous.

"I need to ask you a favor." Garrus had tried for some minutes to find a better way of saying it, ultimately failing.

Williams shifted in her chair, dark eyebrows arched as she cocked her head. "What?" She could not imagine what kind of favor the turian wanted to ask her. Crossing her arms, she got to her feet, still frowning. This was...unexpected.

"I had…a friend come talk to me while I was on the Citadel. It seems her sister's…gotten into a bit of a tight spot." Williams, nonplussed, waited silently for the rest of the story. "She's in Chora's Den. And her sister wants me to get her out."

"Okay." Williams failed to see what any of this had to do with her. "Look, if she wants to wear spandex and shake her ass, that's not my business. And it's not really yours either."

A turian in spandex…gross.

"It's not like _that_, and Jenna's _not_ a stripper," Garrus responded curtly, scowling beadily at Williams. "Her father, Mark, was a C-Sec officer, killed in the line of duty. Jenna's playing informant. The job's dangerous enough, but with her connection to C-Sec, however tenuous…use your imagination." So much for the rumors that Williams was mellowing out!

"Whoa, we're talking a human kid?" Williams arched her eyebrows, surprised at the revelation. Who would have thought a turian would get so worked up over a human...? It set a precedent she never expected.

Garrus did not see the surprise or perplexity as a long held notion was knocked out of joint. "Look, I promised I'd be there if these girls needed anything. Now, one of them is in trouble. I _would_ ask the Commander, but she isn't _here_. " Talking to Williams was like talking to a _wall_.

"So what do you want me to do?" To her credit, Williams meant this question as a genuine offer to help (while uncomfortably wondering if, at some point, her xeno-caution might have descended into something ugly: bigotry).

Garrus did not see the words in a helpful light. "Lose the attitude, for one. If you're not willing to help, fine. It's not part of your duties. I _asked_ you, and it is cutting in on your leave. If you think letting a nice girl like Jenna stay in a club full of scumbags trying to slap her on the ass, that's your business. But don't make her bear the brunt of your _prejudice_ against _me_."

"Hey, wait…" Williams got to her feet, the verbal slap stinging sharply, but Garrus did not stop walking. "Oi!" She jogged to catch up. The words echoed in her ears, ugly...it did not help knowing, deep down, that such an assertion had to be the harvest of what she had sown. "Do you want help, or not?"

The sense of not wanting her help at all showed on his face, an 'I knew this wouldn't do any good' sort of look Williams recognized even without being able to read turian facial expressions very well. Strangely enough, she saw something of herself in that 'I knew it' look of a negative expectation fulfilled.

She was stubborn, but not blind…but she had to question that when faced with an argument like the one Garrus presented.

"What do you need from me?"


	101. Partners

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

By the time Williams and Garrus were given a place and time for their meeting with Chellick's contact, it was getting late. They had not said much to each other, past Garrus explaining the situation, the deal he'd brokered with Chellick, and what he needed from her. It surprised Williams a bit that Shepard wasn't supporting Garrus, but she supposed she understood why it had to be someone else. Time sensitive as this was, they could not wait for Shepard to finish battering her head against the political/bureaucratic wall.

That was why Williams had no desire to be an officer. There was too much politicking once you started moving up the ranks, and it got worse as you continued on. Look at Hackett and Anderson.

"You going to be all right with this?" Garrus asked, before they entered the markets. Williams' neutral expression sometimes looked a bit too close to the one she wore when irritated.

Williams sighed, feeling mostly neutral, except for a normal tremor of pre-mission nervousness. It was something a soldier learned to suppress—to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the mission—but everybody felt them. Everybody. "Yeah, I can do this. No problem."

"Thank you, Chief." He meant it.

"Just…call me Ash. For now, anyway. Couple of badasses, right?" She wished she'd taken drama in school, but now was a little late to worry about that.

"Couple of badasses. All we've got to do is pay for the mods and bring them back. No arrests. No heroics." It sounded like something other people would tell _him_. He never thought he would be saying it to someone else…or maybe he was really reiterating it so he did not try to bust the ring on his own. Goodness knew illegal mods usually caused so much trouble for C-Sec.

Williams could have told him, if he'd asked her: if you snipped the flower off the dandelion, but you left the root, more dandelions would spring up as a result, meaning twice the nasty pollen as before. "You handling the credit transfer?" Williams had not thought of this previously.

"I am." Garrus nodded. "You just put your best foot forward."

"Right. Let's do this." It was Shepard who was really cut out for this sort of thing. Her 'best foot forward' usually involved planting it someplace in someone's anatomy.

"That's him," Garrus rumbled quietly, as Williams' eyes lit on the navy-blue crested krogan watching them—the only krogan in the vicinity—flanked by a couple of goons, one of whom carried a case.

Williams swaggered up to the krogan, who stopped her some way back. "That's close enough, army," Jax grunted, eyeing the pistol on Williams' thigh, and her turian cohort.

"It's _navy_, frogman." Williams responded bluntly.

"Same difference. You got my payment?" Jax demanded, one stubby-fingered hand caressing his rifle.

"Bite me. You got my mods?" Williams crossed her arms, nonplussed.

Garrus did not smile, but he wanted to. Williams might not speak political, but she could speak thug just fine. Already the krogan looked less suspicious.

"Show her."

The cohort with the case opened it, strode forward, and held it up for inspection. Williams continued eyeing Jax, while Garrus looked at the mods, carefully settled in the foam lining the case.

"Well? How do they look Proto Avis?" Williams asked archly.

Garrus, perplexed by the moniker, contrived a turian smile. "Perfect, Ash."

"You're damn straight they are," Jax snarled. "These mods are the best on the damn market. Now hand over my credits."

"Ease off," Williams took a step back as she sneered. "You're a little jumpy frogman; you're making me nervous." A nasty silence ensured, before Jax made an irritable motion with his head. "Pay him." Williams declared, once it was obvious Jax was settling down.

Garrus cued the transfer. "There you go. Don't spend it all in one place."

After a moment, the other goon verified it. The case was closed and handed over to Garrus when Williams nodded to him. "Enjoy it," Jax snarled ungraciously, before hulking off with his goons in tow.

"Come on, let's get out of here." Williams led Garrus off, meandering through the markets.

"_Proto Avis_?" Garrus whispered. It did not translate, but a quick check, on the extranet via his omni-tool explained it: _Proto avis_, the 'first bird' on Earth. Considering turian physiology, it was not ill-chosen. He suspected that to a human the title might mean something slightly different. Human naming conventions being what they were…

"What, you turians don't do nicknames?" Williams asked.

"I understand the concept of nicknames. You human just have weird rules for them."

"Weird rules?" …no they didn't.

"Yeah. You call a friend by a nickname, you call someone you don't like by a nickname…" Garrus long ago accepted this as just another human oddity.

"Whoa, that's totally different." Williams waved.

"You think it's different, calling friends Stumpy, Bog, and Hung-Over Hank, and calling Udina 'The Slug'?" Garrus asked, wishing he had eyebrows like a human, so he could arch them. That was an expressive gesture that, like so many human gestures, meant good things and bad things.

Williams laughed. The conversation had started off rocky, but when he put it that way… "Well, yeah, because obviously someone _knows_ Stumpy, Bog, and Hung-over Hank…you're making that last one up, aren't you?"

Garrus shook his head slowly. If only.

"Anyway, someone knows them well enough to choose fitting nicknames. And Udina's not _The_ Slug, he's just _a_ slug." Williams corrected. He was more than that—or less, depending on how you looked at it—but she did not want to go into it at the moment.

"Not if you listen to Shepard." Silence ensued.

"Okay. Point taken." No one liked Udina anyway. She never thought she'd find common ground with a turian. She still didn't _like_ him, the way she liked Shepard or Alenko…but he wasn't a scumbag like Harkin, or a slug like Udina. He was decent—which was saying a lot.


	102. Credit

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams had seen enough of C-Sec to last her a lifetime, just tagging along after Shepard. It was usually 'Turian Central'. Who would have ever thought she would be here, with one, working as a team on a mission to save a human from discovery and certain death? Not she.

This might be something to write home about.

-J-

"I see you have something for me," Detective Chellick purred as Garrus, followed by his human associate, set the case of mods down on his desk. Nothing odd in seeing Garrus working with a human, but he recognized the woman as Systems Alliance.

Chellick abandoned his assessment of Garrus' backup, and opened the case. He beamed, his mandibles waving as he examined the mods. Nasty things, he could not wait to uproot the source, although he refused to let his impatience to do so override the care and caution necessary to do it.

Unlike _some_ turians in this office would.

"This is everything I need…maybe more than I need." Chellick looked up. Credit where it was due, without this human's help he would still be looking for an appropriate contact—no way he would trust Garrus on his own. The boy would have jumped the gun and ruined everything.

And truthfully, he did not _like _having Jenna in that kind of position to begin with. But necessity was necessity, and that had now passed. "I appreciate your assistance miss…?" It did not do to mis-call a soldier. Chellick remembered that much from his stint on active duty.

-J-

"This is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams," Garrus supplied quickly. "She's part of the crew on my new posting—one of Shepard's ground team."

"Is he driving you crazy yet?" Chellick inquired benignly, watching Williams.

"On and off." William allowed. Credit where it was due, this stint of working with Garrus was not as bad as it could have been. "It's not that bad."

Garrus who had expected an outright 'yes' turned to watch Williams thoughtfully.

Or, Williams supposed it was thoughtful. It was hard to tell with a turian. Shepard was better at working these things out, and Williams had to wonder what Shepard had _done_ during her years of service to pick up turian facial expressions. Or maybe the woman was just observant. She, Williams, did not consider herself particularly so when it came to aliens she was not fighting.

-J-

"As for Jenna," Chellick returned to business, "I'll have her extracted from Chora's Den as soon as possible. You can go tell Rita to stop worrying. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I need to get these mods into evidence…" Chellick got up, closed the case and heaved it off his desk. After evidence…paperwork.

"Don't strain anything," Garrus _knew_ what the process was. He hated paperwork, even if there was no real 'paper' involved. Maybe _that_ was what they should have volunteers doing, instead of riding around safe neighborhoods with officers. Have the kids help sort out the paperwork.

"Uh huh, yeah. Get the hell out of my office, Garrus," Chellick pointed at the door, but the words were friendly, the sort of familiarity that came from longstanding interaction. "Thanks again, Chief. You really bailed him out."

-J-

"I was under the impression we were bailing Jenna out." Williams nodded, feeling awkward but not showing it.

"Ha! Doesn't miss a detail, either. You're in good hands, Garrus."

Garrus shivered at the idea of being on Williams' leash before striding out with Williams at his elbow.

Williams glanced back to find Chellick focused on the mods. Despite the sarcasm, none of it was directed at her, personally.

"Don't mind him; he's just rattling your chain."

Williams nodded grimly. With all the crap the Skipper took from various turians (or, more accurately, just the one) she had not expected a vote of confidence from one.

"I need to tell Rita her sister'll be all right," Garrus announced uncomfortably.

"Yeah, sure." Of course he needed to tell Rita. If she knew anything about family and sisters, the kid was probably biting her nails and in a state of nerves just shy of panic. She would have kicked in the door if one of her sisters got into that position, and dragged her out by the hair.

Or so she told herself out of big-sisterly affection. Deeper down, where common sense resided, she knew it wouldn't work that way. Credit where it was due, if any one of her sisters decided to do something, it took a natural disaster to prevent them from going through with it.

"Would you, uh…like to come along? Since you were part of the thing?" Garrus asked lamely. "Rita'd like to thank you…"

"Nah, I was going to go find dinner. It'll be faster than heading back to the _Normandy_." Real food was always a good thing. "Probably just hit Flux." It was familiar, and she could vouch that the food was good.

"Rita works at Flux." Garrus pointed out.

Well, in that case… "They've got good food. Yeah, okay." Wouldn't that be the way things went? She trying to ditch the turian only to find out they were already headed for the same place? Awkward silence remained as they climbed into a CRT car, Garrus breaking it only to give a destination.

Williams cleared her throat. "So…dare I ask how people get nicknames like Stumpy, Bog, and Hung-Over Hank? Or is it pretty much self-explanatory?"

"Tell you what: once I've got Rita calmed down, I'll grab a plate of something, and tell you all about it." Garrus shifted. It was just a talk, after all. She shouldn't get her hackles up about that.

"Why not?" It wasn't like it was a date, and Garrus had made it very clear it was just two people sitting down while they had their respective suppers. Come to that, she wasn't even sure what turians _ate_. "I wanna know what a guy's got to do to get a name like _Bog _while living on a space station."


	103. Your Other Left

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard and Alenko sat in the mess, nursing coffee and swapping 'sea stories' from their careers. Alenko was still not quite sure he believed all her accounts of Gina O'Conner, but Shepard was no more sure about Alenko getting separated from his team, cornered, and nearly leveling the place.

No casualties.

She did not tell him O'Conner seemed so overwhelming as a personality because of Shepard's more reserved one. O'Conner was folklore to Shepard.

Alenko did not tell Shepard getting cornered happened within the first year of his enlistment. The reason for the separation was not his fault, more like a miscommunication.

Still, it was not a bad conversation, and so far no awkward moments ensued on either side of it. In fact, it turned out they had pounded some of the same ground, though not at the same time.

"…So this guy, doesn't know what's going on," Alenko continued, gesturing to himself as the central character, "gets up from the table as the MPs come storming in. Now, I was just trying to get a drink, enjoy being somewhere what _wasn't _shipside or otherwise duty related, and this was ruining the evening. So the fight's still on, and people are running like crazy, leaving the instigators tangled up and trying to get untangled."

"Uh oh," Shepard grinned broadly. This was a better use of leave than wandering around in strange bars and clubs looking for 'fun'. O'Conner would agree: fresh sea stories were usually worth staying somewhere quiet.

"Next thing they know, they're hanging upside down, midair, confused, and still plastered. The fight's over, but once they realize they're just going to hang there they start trying to get to each other again, carry on, you know?" Shepard nodded as Alenko held a hand up, indicating something handing from puppet strings, "The MPs stop, look around, and finally figure out that the fight's been stopped by a biotic third-party observer—the biotics kind of startled them."

Shepard only snickered: they would.

"Well, the brawlers are just hanging there while I get grilled about what happened. Finally, the MPs decide it's not worth it to make a big production of things—the manager agrees, since intervention spared him a lot in damages—so they ask me to drop them and then I can go on home." Alenko's eyes crinkled with wicked mischief. "So…I did." He dropped his hand palm down on the table expressively.

Shepard shook with suppressed laughter. It did not do for her to cackle like she wanted to. "Right on their numb skulls!" They _would_ be numb skulls after that. Ah, the wonders of gravity.

"Right."

Shepard nodded, and for a long while they both sat quietly, looking into their coffee, humor hanging about them like smoke.

The door of the elevator hissed and a moment later Williams staggered in, her cheeks flushed, bleary-eyed, and obviously dead on her feet exhausted.

Shepard and Alenko exchanged glances. "Hey Chief," Shepard hailed her, waving to catch the marine's attention. It was not like Williams to wobble in drunk (both officers caught a telltale whiff of booze and smoke as she passed)—though Shepard suspected a good deal of the stumbling had to do with an early morning and late night.

Williams waved back at the acknowledgment, not seeming to really process it. Weaving her way back to the corridor of sleeper pods, she struggled with her boots and her balance. She managed to discard her foot gear, and immediately threw herself into the sleeper pod.

"Wow…and I thought O'Conner liked to party hard." Shepard announced mildly.

"I never thought of Williams as a party girl," Alenko shook his head. He still did not, though he would love to know what the occasion (or disaster) was.

The elevator hissed again a moment later, and Garrus came weaving into the mess.

With a feeling of déjà vu, Shepard and Alenko exchanged another look, before Shepard hailed the latest drunken party. "Hey Garrus."

Alenko glanced back at the sleeper pods. Williams and Garrus? Drinking together? Had someone turned the galaxy upside down and forgotten to send him the memo?

"Huh? Whoa…" The turian snapped a human style salute, left-handed, at the sound of Shepard's voice. "Command'r," he continued to sway vaguely, his mandibles wiggling near his jaw.

"Your other left, Garrus." Shepard declared blankly, at a loss as to why Garrus was saluting, let alone saluting her. He had certainly never done so before, so why start now?

Garrus raised his other hand; the gesture made him look nearsighted, and nearly reduced Alenko to helpless laughter. Shepard caught his spasm indicating the effort suppressing his amusement took. Her mouth twisted into a grim smile. Oh, for a holorecorder.

"No, Garrus," she contrived to keep her voice level, though inwardly she wanted to follow Alenko's example. It was late, they were both a little punchy, and Garrus was fodder for amusement just now, cruel as that might sound. "Put the left hand down…" Garrus did so obediently, though his alien features crumpled into an expression of trying to memorize the information he was being presented with through a haze of tiredness and alcohol.

He would not remember a thing come morning, Shepard decided. "Carry on, soldier." She could not think of what else to say, and did not trust herself to look at Alenko, lest they both dissolve into helpless laughter. The idea of the xeno-cautious Williams and the hard-hitting turian getting drunk and staggering home together (more or less) was hilarious.

"Night Command'r…'Tenant…" Garrus wobbled off to _his_ sleeper pod.

If he had to try and get his turian boots off, Shepard thought, he would crack his head open on the pod, effectively killing himself.

Alenko shook his head slowly, as his mirth subsided. "Williams and Garrus?" The galaxy had officially gone belly up.

"Out on the town?" Something was not adding up, and both officers tried futilely to explain what they had just seen and the implications thereof.

Could that be..._friendship_?


	104. Shotgun Shells

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Timeframe: Wrex's 'Loyalty Mission'.

-J-

"You ready?" Shepard asked, her hand hovering over the sensor to palm the door open and her heart pounding in her throat, the jump of her pulse hidden beneath the neck of her armor.

Wrex charged his shotgun. "You got us here, didn't you?"

"Just wanted to make sure you weren't getting cold feet." Shepard's hand didn't inch nearer the panel as she grinned.

"I'm a krogan and you're a spacer," he motioned with his shotgun, "We're supposed to have cold feet. Open the damn door."

Shepard's hand swiped across the panel. The door hissed open.

Wrex barreled in, the shockwave from his shotgun beating against Shepard's sinuses as she came hurrying behind him, her own shotgun raised to shoulder height.

_Boom _went Shepard's favorite piece of equipment.

_Boom boom_ went Wrex's favorite toy.

Shotgun pellets peppered the lurking mercenaries, caught off guard by the sudden appearance of—apparently—more mercenaries. And who expected a human and a krogan to take on a mercenary-infested bunker with just a pair of shotguns between them?

Shepard dove behind a wall of crates, slipping around the end as Wrex continued putting pressure on the mercenaries. She was not the only one with the idea to slip around back and catch someone in crossfire. She was, however, the only one expecting such a trick. No sooner did she spot a merc slipping between several stacks of crates than her shotgun roared out, kicking into her shoulder as it sent its volley of shot tearing into its target. Cheap armor met gear above the standard issue, tearing into the substandard plates like wasps through a cotton shirt.

-J-

Wrex counted heads before ducking behind his cover as shots peppered the crates. Let Shepard take her time—her shotgun rang out, accompanied by a scream of pain, then silence.

The scream wasn't hers, which could only mean situation normal.

Who'd have thought he'd ever slip into using some of the military jargon? With a grunt of amusement, he motioned with one stumpy, muscular arm, hoisting the crates behind which the mercs had finally taken refuge into the air. He barely saw the turian—Actus—scuttle away, but heard Shepard's shotgun. Actus ducked, narrowly avoiding both Shepard's attack and the flurry of crates suddenly landing on top of the heads of those previously using them for cover.

It was fun to watch people scuttle like dislodged rachni once their cover no longer provided cover. But merely by showing himself, Actus had given himself bigger problems to worry about than flying crates. Wrex sent them slamming to the ground, losing sight of Actus.

That was all right, Wrex charged his weapon. It was more fun to run the slug down anyway.

…slug. That was what the marines called their ambassador. They _were_ starting to rub off on him.

Damn.

-J-

Shepard threw herself into a roll—she hated combat rolls—to get out of the immediate line of fire, as Wrex lifted the crates obscuring her from enemy eyes into the air, a thin veil of dark energy shimmering around the edges.

Peeking over the gray crates, which smelled strongly of new plastic, Shepard caught sight of Actus trying to retreat, took aim…and missed.

She could not believe it: she had missed while using a shotgun!

Still, Actus had to duck one of the crates, just before Wrex dropped the rest of them. Ducking an obvious danger saved him from the less obvious, more lethal one.

Shepard grit her teeth as Actus vanished into the back room. "Wrex!" She barked, letting loose a blast with her shotgun, peppering the first brave merc to show his—or her—face. Not that it was a face much longer, as the bloody explosion spattering the wall behind indicated. "In the back!"

Wrex saw Actus sneak out, just after Shepard redirected his attention. In the time it took Wrex to blast himself a path forward, with Shepard keeping the mercs unwilling to peer out from behind their not-so-protective crates, Actus came back.

Shepard shouted a warning, seeing the heavy weapon held up to the turian's shoulder. The first shell landed to her left, but the explosion caught her, flinging her face-first into the next stack of crates, which swayed and toppled—but didn't fall.

Wrex stabilized it biotically, long enough for Shepard to get her balance and get out of the way. Actus might have a big gun, but he certainly couldn't hit anything with it. "Take out those mercs!"

Shepard unclipped a grenade from her belt, not bothering to yell 'fire in the hole'.

_Boom_. The grenade exploded before it hit the ground, lobbed by a practiced throwing arm.

"You throw like a girl!" Wrex laughed, as he biotically pushed the incoming explosive Actus sought to launch in a perceived moment of distraction so it hit the roof. The lights flashed, leaving the room half dark.

"I know you can hit the broad side of the barn, Wrex, but _that's not what you're supposed to be aiming at_!"

Shepard moved in a wide arc so as to approach the ruined end of the bunker without presenting Actus with a target for that missile launcher. _She_ didn't have one in her arsenal, and was willing to bet Wrex would want one after this, just to have. She agreed.

It took moments to finish off any remaining mercs; it was more merciful to finish them off before they bled out. The armor the mercs sported might look fancy, but it couldn't stand up to Alliance standard-issue, let alone Spectre-grade gear.

A loud _bang, _followed by a shout. Wrex gave a loud 'hah!', charged his shotgun, and let it sound again.

By the time Shepard worked her way to the back room, Wrex was already there, a cuirass of ancient-looking armor dangling from one hand. With a grunt, he slung it over his shoulder, then gave Shepard a look she found hard to read. It vanished as he nodded briskly before heading for the bunker's door.


	105. Insomnia

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Suddenly awakened in the middle of his eight-hour sleep shift, Private Fredricks groaned. Half-asleep, but unable to stagger those last few steps into true unconsciousness, his brain lazily plucked thoughts from the periphery and slapped them together like an artist in a vague frame of mind.

His thoughts paused and coalesced into thought, something easy to focus on. He would never have believed it, if he had not seen it for himself: the crew on the Normandy was spectacular.

The ground team had, in a very short amount of time, garnered a reputation bordering on epic. They were superhuman (in the case of Lt. Alenko), absolute titans (in the case of Wrex, Garrus, and Williams), the new face of combat (the quarian…though 'face' was used loosely)…

…and there was Shepard. She did not get a nifty epithet. Shepard simply _was_…well, there was an epithet: Shepard was an icon.

Rumor had it they were heading for Feros, and no one was too clear on why. Something was wrong with the colony, yes, but apart from that…no one knew anything, because the brass weren't talking. Not that the brass usually overburdened the crew with details, yet this did not seem like a complete blackout…

…but when a colony went silent—as this one apparently had—people worried. There, that probably explained everything: most people knew about Shepard's history. If a colony went silent, she would probably be very concerned indeed—past the usual bounds.

Colonies did not often go silent. With the crazy turian careening around the galaxy, it made sense that everything and anything unusual would be ascribed to him until there was firm confirmation to the contrary.

He shook his head to clear it. What-ifs and theories were not going to get him back to sleep, so maybe thinking of other people's idiosyncrasies would. They were not boring topics, but rather much hashed-out among the crew. Half the crew on the SSV Normandy seemed to suffer chronic insomnia, so topics tended to be routinely recycled back and forth for lack of better (or newer) material.

The quarian in particular. It was creepy to wake up in the middle of the night, step out of the sleeper pod, and hear those soft footsteps clicking on the floor, or see her curvy form drifting shadowlike through the mess. He once overheard her confessing to the Lieutenant that the silence of the ship no longer bothered her…but that the habit of getting up to walk the halls had stuck.

He didn't understand why silence would bother someone. A silent ship, one would think, would be conducive to a good eight hours. Still, she seemed like a sweet enough kid, as well as being Chief Engineer Adams' protégé. Had the Alliance gotten into the practice of taking in aliens, Adams would have begged her to sign on, Fredricks was sure of it.

Chief Williams seemed to be one of those crazy, lucky people who only needed four hours of sleep and could run for twenty (standard Earth hours, he corrected himself—not Citadel-standard hours). She always seemed to be quietly recording messages home. Common knowledge planted her as part of a big but close-knit family. She certainly got a lot of mail, when the mail got picked up.

And rumor had it that she got nasty if interrupted during her discourses home.

The Lieutenant ('the Superman', after Therum, though only when he was not in earshot) gave Fredricks the creeps, being a biotic and all. A lot of people said the L2s were prone to bouts of crazy, and Fredricks had seen what the Lieutenant could do when seriously motivated. He was always polite, always composed, the unimpeachable officer…

But still a biotic, and while people claimed the whole mind-reading thing was beyond the scope of a biotic's so-called 'gifts'…he didn't believe it. The Lieutenant seemed to _smell_ trouble before it happened. He also had a habit of walking in when Fredricks was saying things not entirely wise to say with an officer hanging around.

Amazing how such a brawny guy could be so quiet. Fredricks shuddered, remembering the embarrassment of being shown up about the Asari Consort on the Citadel…he had taken to checking over his shoulder every time he embellished something.

Commander Shepard was fairly easygoing with regards to rules, regs, and protocol, but it was easy to see her firm hand on the reins. Her leadership was much different from Anderson's. No, not 'much different', it just had a different flavor.

And she always seemed to be awake to field trouble.

Even Chief Engineer Adams and Navigator Pressly were known to walk laps around the ship at midnight (more or less), and neither of them were ever field men.

That sort of accounted for most of the officers on his shift. The only _one_ not prone to wandering around at night was Joker…for obvious reasons.

Fredricks sighed, climbing out of his sleeper pod. Thinking, and letting his thoughts meander like horses out of their corral, was not lulling him back to sleep so he might as well join the usual conventions and take a couple laps around the mess.

Coming out of the sleeper pods' hallway, he caught a low, female voice murmuring softly before being answered by a bemused rumble.

Sitting at the mess hall table were Lieutenant Alenko and Commander Shepard, apparently playing cards. Shepard sat facing the medical bay, and so saw him approach. "What's the matter, Private?" she asked pleasantly, her tone belying her grim expression. "The insomnia catching?"

"Absolutely, ma'am." Despite the fact the Commander and the Lieutenant were playing cards, he distinctly heard, as he made for the coffee pot—knowing coffee was the worst thing he could drink right now—the words 'husks', 'batarians', 'Saren', and 'could be trouble'.

It confirmed all his earlier suspicions and deterred him from getting that coffee. He headed straight back to his sleeper pod…

…after one full lap around the deck, to show he had not been eavesdropping.


	106. Think Tank

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The _Normandy _glided serenely en route to the luminous orb that was Feros. This left plenty of time for the pilot to relax, and keep the ship's orbit from deteriorating. He could have put it on autopilot, but that would have meant admitting he _knew_ where the autopilot _was_. And really, what was the point of having a pilot who let the ship steer itself?

The last anyone had heard, Shepard was again closeted with Saren's journals. She had not emerged since after breakfast, or even made contact except to acknowledge that the _Normandy _was closing in on the silent colony. And—if Joker's clock was right—she had not come out for lunch, either. So he jumped when his ear radio crackled, like a peremptory throat-clearing cough before Shepard's curt voice sounded, but not over the all-call.

"_Joker_?"

"Yes ma'am?" She was using the tone identified—behind her back—as the 'go kill something' tone. No one ever referred to it that way to her face, lest they find it directed at _them_ in particular.

"_You busy?"_

"Ah, yeah sure," Joker grinned at Alenko, sitting in the copilot's chair and mouthed '_It's Shepard'_. "Just climbed out of the shower—what can I do for you?"

Alenko rolled his eyes—how classically Joker.

Shepard spared no thought for the joke. "_Put a towel on, and find Alenko. His number came out of the bingo-ball dispenser to join the think-tank. We're in the mess._"

The communication severed, leading the pilot to suspect Shepard already had a fairly shrewd idea where Alenko was in the first place. "Hey, what's your lucky number?" Joker inquired.

"Nine…why?" Alenko frowned. "What'd she want?"

"Your lucky number's up. Sounds like she's having a think tank and she wants another couple of brain cells. Sounds painful, actually—she's got that 'go kill something' tone going."

With some women, the tone would have sounded alluring. With Shepard it was a warning that she was planning some kind of violence, and therefore to be taken seriously.

If asked for her opinion on this, she would have smiled and pointed out that a woman in her position needed the ability to quash silly notions fairly efficiently and to ensure she was taken extremely seriously.

"Only if Wrex is part of it." Alenko answered, levering himself out of the chair.

Joker grinned—Wrex indeed.

-J-

Shepard's frustration at not getting anything accomplished in this think-tank never manifested, as she watched Alenko biotically spinning a pilfered playing card between two fingers.

Even Liara, having slipped out of the medical bay to offer her two credits, watched the card's process with interest.

The smell of hazelnut coffee permeated the air, while a plate of round cake slices sat in the middle of the table. _Never_, Williams had announced, setting the cake down, _think on an empty stomach_.

"This is a _waste_ of _time_," Williams finally mumbled, her head hidden in her arms.

It certainly seemed that way. The only thing anyone knew, concretely knew, was that there were no long-range communications coming from the planet's surface, except for odd signals Tali darkly identified as belonging to geth. Lots of them, which did not aid mission planning.

Hence why the _Normandy _was quietly slipping in, rather than going in guns blazing. With any luck they might slip in relatively unnoticed.

"She's right," Alenko heaved a sigh, stopping the spin of the playing card. "We'll just have to do this the old fashioned way—go look ourselves, and go armed."

"Yeah, looks like," Shepard sipped her coffee, to which she had added cream, unusual for her. Definitely way better than the usual stuff, though she found herself wishing she had had something to contribute, past a couple bottles of Astro-Fizz. The only entity who sent _her_ mail was the NEX, and all they sent were cases of Astro-Fizz and odorless gun cleaners. "Volunteers?" All hands lifted simultaneously.

Even Liara's, though she looked surprised at her own daring, which elicited smiles.

"No offense to our…nonhuman volunteers…and I _mean_ that," Williams began, though ruined it with a note of self-justification, "but this is an Alliance matter, since we're usually the ones who go in when a colony 'disappears'."

To her surprise, Garrus backed her up. "The chief does present a valid point: maybe it would be better to take your human ground crew, at least at first. That way there are no…bullet-hole ridden misunderstandings."

"We're _marines_ Garrus," Williams half laughed, "haven't you figured it out yet? That's kind of in the job description…"

"If you say so." The turian rolled his eyes with a shake of his head.

Silence ensued, along with stares at the sudden bout of unexpected camaraderie. Almost unexpected, Shepard and Alenko exchanged shifty looks, as the only ones who knew about Garrus' and Williams' late night out.

"What?" Williams frowned around the table, most of whom were giving her looks as though she had sprouted another head. She looked over at Garrus, who cocked his head, almost birdlike as he shrugged. "He's got a point, and I dunno about you, Skipper, but it seems like every time I step _off_ this boat…"

The grins had given way to biting lips and stifling chuckles.

"Oh…_shit_. Go on, let it out…I think the El-Tee's about to break ribs." Williams remarked flatly, and with a roll of her eyes. "I thought I left this kind of crap back home around the kitchen table."

"Sorry Chief…" Shepard announced guiltily when she could speak again.

"You two sure got friendly in a hurry.l" Alenko's expression indicated he wasn't sorry in the slightest—this was payback for any previous, unnecessary needling.

The comment did not perturb Garrus, but Williams read more into it than was intended, judging by the furious red suffusing her entire face.

Liara looked back and forth among the humans, then at Tali—still shaking with mirth—and Garrus, shaking his head in agreement with Williams.

It must be another one of those human things…or maybe not...


	107. Lead Hat

Beta read by Saberlin.

Locale: Preparing to dock with Zhu's Hope, Feros.

-J-

"Commander…" Garrus accosted Shepard as she entered the cargo bay, returning from the colony to confer with several garage crewmen. He had all his arguments lined up. Shepard responded better to well-constructed arguments and this time he had his all ready. There was no working around it.

This was the same general mood and mindset he had when originally trying to convince Shepard to bring him along for the chase…only to find she was not adverse to his presence at all. With this similarity established, he returned his attention to Shepard with all the intensity of a watching predator.

Shepard opened her mouth—no doubt to tell him to stand back and let her handle this. He could see why, he really could. It was a human colony, and as much an Alliance problem as a Council problem. But still…he was getting tired of sitting around and twiddling his talons. "Gar—"

"Commander, there's going to be a lot of heavy resistance and as admirable as your team is…"

"–rus…"

"…Chief Williams isn't tech certified, and you know the geth have strength in numbers…" As much as he respected Williams, fragging synthetics with finesse (and en masse) was _not_ her strong point.

"Gar—"

"You like to know what your crew is thinking and I'm just saying…" He would not let this lie!

"_Garrus_." She looked ready to grab him by a mandible and yank on it until he let her get a word in edgewise.

He closed his mouth, folding his mandibles tightly against his chin. She did not look _angry_, only irritated at not being able to say his name without being interrupted, and amused by his lack of information.

Or maybe it was just the impetuous, 'jump right in there and do it' attitude. He had noticed she worked to keep him in check, but did not criticize the attitude itself. It puzzled him before now—most superiors tried to quash any sort of Garrus-style proactive attitudes. He still wondered about her open-mindedness on that subject, but was not planning to ever voice the question.

"I'm taking Alenko and Williams; _I_ don't want to have to explain Spectres, Saren, nonhumans, and the kitchen sink." It was a humanism, and Garrus understood it, but it seemed to stick out in her sentence like a sore thumb.

Like...he, Tali, and Wrex would stick out... Liara was an asari, humans tended to accept them quickly, and she would _never_ venture off this boat. She might have volunteered, and he didn't doubt she meant it, but she was _not_ field personnel.

"I _have_ got something I want you to do. You want to make a contribution to this effort?"

Garrus nodded, unsure whether it would be wise to say anything. It seemed to him as though he had just made a repeat performance of his original attempt to join Shepard's band here on the _Normandy_: namely that he had not convinced her of anything, merely gummed up the works.

"Good. I want you to take Tali and Wrex. Go do what you can to get this colony back up and running. I can't fix these problems _and_ stop the geth. I don't trust those tin cans not to try another push."

Any colony in Feros' position would have any number of small problems needing attention. Shepard had no way of guessing what those problems might be, but Joker had already identified a hotspot of activity as they came into dock—a hotspot requiring the use of a vehicle to reach.

Garrus quieted under Shepard's inexorable, nonverbal pressure for him to settle down and _listen_ to her, not just hear her words. Had he not done so, he would have missed key points and he knew it.

No, he was not going on the high-profile mission.

Yes, he was providing backup. But it was necessary backup…and it was _his_ mission. Not Wrex's (and Wrex would challenge any authority conferred upon any turian as a matter of principle), not Tali's (though he could see where his responsibility for balancing keeping Tali alive and letting her do her job lay). It was _his_ _mission_.

And just in case things went wrong, the very best backup tech support on the team. But Shepard had made him the lead hat—to use the humanism—and it _meant_ something to him.

What held him back so often within C-Sec did not seem to bother Shepard, as long as he was pointed in the right direction when he took off. And she usually gave his bubbles of altruism, compassion for others, and good sensibilities a good poke beforehand.

No rose-colored delusions when bullets started flying.

"Shall I ask Dr. T'Soni and Dr. Chakwas to see what they can do for the colonists? A once-over never hurts, and they've been caught in a warzone for awhile now." He could not keep the eagerness out of his tone, though he tried.

Shepard beamed at the question, but mostly at the way Garrus' posture changed, as though bracing against a tackle but not on the offense. He was someone ready to conduct a holding action, dig his heels in, and hold until relieved.

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea. I'll have Dr. Chakwas informed."

"I'll handle it, Commander." Garrus' mandibles quivered, even as he went over his available options—with the limited information he had—searching for the best course of action. Yes, he would need his C-Sec hat—it would make dealing with the humans easier—but…

Shepard continued eyeing him, not as though she doubted the wisdom of her decision but as though she was trying to get into his head. She was getting better at reading turian facial expressions, but still missed many of the subtleties therein.

"Worry about Wrex, Commander. I know what I need to do."

Shepard's smile broadened, as though at someone who did not know what he was getting in to. "Wrex is _your_ problem today. Good luck with that."


	108. Tagged

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus did not succeed in stifling the self-satisfied rumble—humans called it a 'purr'—resonating in his chest as Shepard took the elevator up to the CIC. Here it was: his big chance! His big chance to prove that he could get the job done, and get it done right.

Then it occurred to him that if Shepard did not want to explain Spectres, geth, and Reapers, she _probably_ would not warn the locals that a band of non-humans was about to show up to lend hands, talons, and omnitools to the cause.

Which meant _he _had to find a way to explain their presence.

Was that funny? No, really, was it funny? If it happened to someone else it might be…but…

…well, he was a cop, once…he could still do the 'soothe the citizen' thing. It would feel weird, though, without the badge.

Garrus walked straight past Wrex—he was not sure how to approach the krogan. Shepard gave orders and Wrex complied (with a lot of lip in the process). He was not Shepard, so he did not get to give orders…which meant he had to think of a way to get Wrex to do what he wanted him to do…which meant figuring out Wrex's motivations.

Tali was easier, he would start there.

Garrus had never set foot in engineering before, and the blinding light and steady pulse made him shiver. Alenko avoided Engineering too, come to think of it—the core probably made his head feel funny, or something. There weren't many turian biotics, and cabals tended to be very carefully utilized—he had little understanding of them or their jobs, and even less about the technicalities of _human_ biotics.

"Engineer Adams?" he had to repeat the question twice before Adams heard him—and two of the engineers jumped at finding a turian composedly standing in the doorway.

"What do you want, Garrus?" Adams called back, taking a drink from his sippy-lidded coffee.

The sippy lids were a running joke. Garrus thought he understood it, but not having lips (and therefore learning to drink in an entirely different fashion from humans) he was sure he was not getting the full impact of the joke.

"I need to borrow Tali!"

"Me?" Tali strode up to him so she would not have to shout. "What's going on?"

"Shepard wants me to take a team dirtside, see what we can do for the colony."

Tali's eyes blinked twice, barely visible behind her faceshield. "Okay, I'll get my things and meet you by the airlock...um…Shepard likes teams of three…are we taking Dr. T'Soni?"

"Yes, sort of…actually Dr. Chakwas is taking her…" he should have stopped in with Dr. Chakwas first. "We're, um...Wrex is coming along."

Tali's eyes narrowed, though not in anger. The way she stiffened, it was clear she, at least, had not gotten over her discomfort around the krogan. Well, when you were that small…

"Why don't _I _tell the doctors, and _you _soften up Wrex?"

Garrus opened his mouth to say he could do it—he could do it all! This was his mission!—before rationalizing that if he wanted to make a good impression, he should get things done quickly, have as much squared away as possible by the time Shepard got back. If this was his first solo command, impressing the Commander might leave her open to letting him take charge again, at some point in the future.

"That's a good idea. Get your gear, get the ladies, and wait for me at the airlock. We'll all go down together." He might as well get his cop-hat back on _now_.

Approaching Wrex cautiously, Garrus thumbed through his mental manual of procedures. Headshots were out, interrogation this was not, nor was it shaking something out of a fink, trying to charm his way through a locked door (never worked anyway), or clearing a room.

"You're lurking, kid." Wrex rumbled, red eyes narrowed.

Garrus' mandibles pulled in, the equivalent to a human pursing his lips. "I'm out in the open; how can that be lurking?" What motivated Wrex? He could try to boss the krogan…but that would never work. Wrex didn't let himself be bossed. How did Shepard get him to move? No sweet-talking, no diplomacy…

…could she think krogan?

…could he?

He had been within earshot for the missions Shepard brought Wrex along— the little missions she used to 'keep the crew exercised'. That came up so often…'gotta walk the krogan', 'the turian's getting antsy', 'the marines are missing their five-mile runs'.

…and always when she was about to ask them to do something physically demanding… "You're getting cranky. Shepard forget to walk you?"

"Hmm…keep working on that. It works when she does it. You…not so much."

Damn. Then it came to him. "Well, if you'd rather just sit here and be bored, I'm sure Dr. T'Soni has the reach necessary for this mission. Too bad Alenko's with Shepard…" He did not think he had hit a nerve as dead-on as Shepard might have, but he had certainly nicked one. The krogan's snort confirmed it. "You feeling okay? You look a little pale—"

"Kid," Wrex hopped off the crate with a nimbleness one might not expect in someone so massive. "It works when she does it. With you…it's just irritating. Get your ass to the airlock, or I'll kick it there."

Garrus felt his blood pressure rising. Of course Wrex would make a power play…

Then he flashed back to his conversation with Williams, about finding Rita and getting her out of Chora's Den. "I'm not trying to _tell_ you to do anything; I'm _asking _you to back us up. You're the best person for the job."

Wrex snorted. "I'm the _only _person for the job."

"Exactly."

"Exactly. Think hard, kid."

Garrus did so, as Wrex waddled away, before realizing that Shepard had, under the guise of giving him something he wanted, stuck him with the people who were most likely _not _to work well together.


	109. Concerns

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Garrus fretted as the realization sunk in: Shepard had given him Tali, Wrex, and to an extent Dr. T'Soni (with Dr. Chakwas as 'adult supervision') as well.

It was a bad match of personalities and talents.

Liara was just...green as anything. Tali was intimidated by Wrex, and Wrex liked to bait and/or intimidate people. Wrex also did not see him—Garrus, the team lead—as _any_ kind of authority figure. He, himself, was not entirely free of certain turian mindsets regarding krogan and quarians in general…

…which made them the most motley, misfit band of individuals he had ever seen in his life, bar none. Add to that his lack of experience with motivating such a diverse group…Tali was accommodating _now_, but she might not be _later_…she had a backbone and was discovering it for herself as time went on.

That was good, of course, but it made her unpredictable, after a fashion.

...some days he really, really hated Shepard, and wondered if she didn't have some kind of concentrated source of evil in her family tree somewhere, diluted and transmuted into the piece of work currently leading this grand venture—and he meant it as a compliment…mostly.

A dictator or warlord…maybe an insanely gifted spy? She was devious, conniving...

…and now it was angled at him. Previously he thought this deviousness, when angled at Williams (to get her to be more xeno-acceptant), or Wrex (to get cooperation), or half a dozen other people, was amusing. A tug of the strings here, a gentle prod there…and everything fell out according to her grand scheme…when she had one. He had seen enough on-the-fly planning to know she did not have everything in hand at all times.

And now, she had _him _in hand. He felt like a stooge, jumping at the bait without looking for the 'why' of why it was offered…or was he reading too much into this? He thought he trusted Shepard, but now he was not so sure…

He pulled his mandibles close to his jaw. Just stick to the job, and get it done. It was what he was good at. Do the job and let the results take care of themselves…

…it was sensible advice, and in hindsight he had to admit that his father's advice usually _was_ sensible…if not always applicable.

The team waited for him at the airlock, along with many expressive looks from Joker, and multiple hints about the pilot's amusement at seeing the 'second sting' being put into play. Joker would probably have an ear on them the whole time, 'supervising'.

Snooping was more like it.

An air of tension hung around the group—barring Dr. Chakwas. Dr. Chakwas did not let herself show nerves…and Garrus was sure that for someone used to dealing with sick or injured marines, Wrex was no problem. He didn't know how she came to that conclusion, but that was the impression she gave.

Despite all the speed and spin to his thoughts, he found her presence a reassuring one, stabilizing.

"All right," Garrus began as they stepped out of the Normandy into the dusty air and chilly wind of the docking piers. "Shepard's got her hands full fighting geth, so we're here managing the logistics."

Wrex was laughing at him.

Tali's posture hinted at a dubious opinion of this mission, mixed with nerves caused by Wrex. Both she and Dr. T'Soni had gravitated towards Dr. Chakwas, as if she somehow afforded protection from the krogan.

Wrex loomed like a stalker in the shadows, throwing off intimidation in buckets and clearly enjoying the effects this had on the rest of the group. Or maybe he was just laughing inwardly at Garrus' discomfiture—Garrus did not know about the krogan, and he still did not entirely trust Shepard's judgment on that count.

"We don't know what the full situation is…so, doctors…you know your business best, and I'll leave you to take care of it." There, that was what he wanted while working with C-Sec: let him do his damn job, and don't tell him how to do it.

Working with groups was _hard_. He much, _much_ preferred working solo…or in tandem.

"Certainly."

He knew Dr. T'Soni was only confirming her instructions…but he still felt like a varren up a tree. Awkward. "The rest of us will take care of logistics. So let's find…" Shepard hadn't told him who the go-to person was. Crap. "…the leader of this colony and take it from there." He was failing. He was so failing, and it was like watching a spaceship crash: there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Let's move out."

"Garrus?" Dr. T'Soni stopped him hesitantly, as she shifted her weight anxiously from foot to foot. "I…I think there's something wrong here. With the colony, I mean."

"Yeah," Garrus agreed, looking around at the colony himself—it didn't look like any colony he had ever seen before. More like the wreckage of a colony, and that was what they were here to fix. "And if this place is as bad as it looks, you can go a long way towards helping to fix that." The kid needed confidence, he thought with a touch of superiority. "Just do what you do best, we'll do the same, and we'll all be in the mess in time for…"

Liara opened her mouth to try to say something else, then shook her head, and slipped quietly after Dr. Chakwas. Liara indicated, upon apparently being questioned by the older woman, that the conversation had been about nothing, really.

…was it something he said? She still looked nervous…it was a good thing this kid did not get off the boat very often. If a place like this—where nothing was really happening—freaked her out, imagine what a hot zone would do to her.

He sighed, and hurried to take point, keenly aware that Wrex was enjoying the obvious rookie playing team lead.

He wasn't playing. He was dead serious. Now…about that colony leader.


	110. Warning

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Locale: Feros, Zhu's Hope Colony

-J-

"Are you all right?" Dr. Chakwas asked kindly, as she and Liara picked their way forward, in the wake of Garrus' team.

"Yes, it was nothing. Just pre-mission jitters." But it was more than jitters, and she had enough confidence in herself to know it was more than jitters. There was something _wrong_ with this colony, and she had not even reached the populated area yet.

It was not the hostile environment that troubled her—though on any other day it might well do so. It was spooky, desolate. The air was so dry it made her worry that the capillaries in her nose might burst…and a doctor—whether she was a medical doctor or not (people seemed to forget she was _not_ well versed in xenobiology)—with a nosebleed was _not _reassuring.

"Just follow my lead," Dr. Chakwas patted her on the back reassuringly—gently, especially considering the way the marines liked to thump each other. One would think they were trying to knock the wind out of each other, or were listening for pitch.

She had only recently learned that it had more to do with the fact that back-thumping _usually_ happened when they were wearing armor, so you had to smack hard to be felt…and that sort of carried over into their unarmored 'downtime'.

Human military culture was sometimes a fascinating subject…

"Wake up, doctor," Dr. Chakwas prompted gently, calling Liara back to reality and reminding her of the capacity she currently filled. "Sugar cubes and NSAIDs, Liara, sugar cubes and NSAIDs."

"…I do not understand the correlation, Dr. Chakwas."

"Sugar cubes to make them feel better. NSAIDs when there's a problem."

"So…you are advising placebos and low-level treatment?"

"It's just a saying," but Dr. Chakwas' lovely misty green drift of patience did not flux. Liara was certain this was the product of long practice, that hurt soldiers were cranky soldiers, and looking for a reason to snap and snark. She supposed the whole species was like that—no species reacted well to pain—but if one took Dr. Chakwas' word, soldiers 'fussed louder'.

The first person they came across directed them—when Dr. Chakwas asked—to Fai Dan. Liara thought nothing of this, whatsoever, until they came across a makeshift medical facility. It was upon standing before the occupants—a man and his wife—that she discovered the source of the strangeness.

The man's drift was flat, but not a calm, unruffled flat like Dr. Chakwas' usually exhibited. It was…an oozy, swampy, marshy, scum-on-the-water sort of flat. It was disgusting, repellent, something that could smother, given the chance.

The woman's drift was worrisome: it was like watching an anaconda eating a deer. The oozy perception kept trying to creep up on, to envelope the panicky pulsing drift. It made her sick. She wished she could turn around, right now, and drag everyone back to the ship, where it was safe.

Twice during Dr. Chakwas' conversation she found herself gazing blankly, unfocusedly at the ground, as though hypnotized. But it was a floor; a floor was a floor was a floor…wasn't it?

"Liara…" Dr. Chakwas began kindly, her drift shifting blue.

"No." The word came out hard and fast, like a bullet. "No, I would rather help you…I…you wouldn't want an antsy asari in your medbay's office, would you?" There, falling back on one of Shepard's analogies, and it seemed to pacify Dr. Chakwas. Or rather, the medical officer appreciated that some things were personal, or not with which to burden others.

If she went back to the ship, she would go back alone, and that felt like cowardice. Besides, there was nothing here to be afraid of: Shepard, Lt. Alenko, and Chief Williams were all where the action was…or would be, once the Normandy dropped the Mako onto the skyway.

It was probably just nerves, as she reminded herself…but once again the dark knowledge that this was _not_ 'just nerves' cut across her thoughts. She lacked confidence in a great many things, but this was one of the few recent instances where she was absolutely sure of something.

Still, until she could articulate it in a way that sounded less like 'hoodoo', she could not do much more than stick close to Dr. Chakwas' shoulder, her bright eyes twitching this way and that.

Same oozy drift. She made it a point to meander somewhat as the general direction of progress allowed, passing close enough to catch snatches of drift, like catching a whiff of perfume here, a flash of color there…

Same drift…same drift…

…same drift! And from a salarian! Salarians and humans had _very_ different minds! There was no natural way for their drift to be…the same….or close enough as to seem the same. To her surprise, despite the jitters, something in her guts firmed up, as though someone had flicked a switch in her repository of reactions, priming her for a fight, reducing the level of fear to manageable amounts.

If this was part of being a soldier, count her out…

In a strange way, the reaction to possible—probable—danger reminded her that she could not be 'counted out' forever. Benezia was out there, doing something dangerous. It sounded as though she was a willing party…

…and she was sure that if the opportunity arose, she would have no choice but to confront Benezia herself. She was Benezia's daughter: she had to be there, if possible, if only to hear Benezia's justifications…if there were any.

"You know," Dr. Chakwas declared, ten minutes later as she surveyed the colony, "I saw a place like this in an old, old horror film. In that case, it was something in the water."

"Maybe it was something in the water keeping things in check, here?"

"I'll scan for any abnormalities…but just in case, don't get too comfortable," Dr. Chawkas advised darkly. From her medical bag she produced a small pistol, charged it, and put it back.

Liara nodded: it was good to take warnings when they came.


	111. Steel

Beta-read by Saberlin.

*Radio comments are denoted 'blah-blah', because if the italics somehow get lost … I still want it obvious that a comment _is _via radios only.

-J-

Tali did not mind Garrus leading the party. She did not mind him leading from the slightly-to-the-rear position, either. That was logistics, not a personal preference: when one worked closely with two individuals, both wielding shotguns, it was wise to keep a step back. She did not even mind _Wrex_.

He was intimidating, and enjoyed a fight _way_ too much…but that was understandable and—given that he was a krogan—expected.

What she minded was that two of the three major problems she was faced with helping solve seemed like sabotage. Waterlines were cut, recently, and not in a geth manner of doing things. The generator's fuel cells within the colony proper...well, they hadn't shorted out, if that was what the colonist thought.

They had been _tampered _with. Her suspicion was the tampering set them up to fail later, as they had after the geth started putting pressure on the colony.

It also looked like the work of someone who was not a certain what they were doing. "Garrus?" The turian continued keeping both beady eyes in the dark tunnel ahead. They could all hear geth, but ignoring her was a little ridiculous! "_Garrus_!"

"Yeah?" Garrus turned to face her as she threw the switch to set the first control panel to 'open'.

"This wasn't done by the geth."

"You'd know. Who did do it?"

Tali's fingers clenched around her shotgun. "Yes, I _would_, wouldn't I?" she asked sharply, to Wrex's amusement. "I don't _know_, but _apparently _someone else is _down_ here. You might want to keep your eyes peeled and your talon off the trigger."

It was Garrus' turn to bristle.

'_Not bad, hotshot!'_ Trust Joker to eavesdrop, she smiled. '_Let him have another one!'_

She simply scowled at Garrus, until the turian turned, clearing his throat.

'_I thought so—he's just gotta work his way around that stick…'_

Wrex stopped, then glanced back at Tali. She would almost swear he...winked...at her. "Hey, Garrus. You get wet recently?"

The turian seemed to shake with frustration, garnering more approval from Joker—Tali suspected she was the only one who could hear his commentary.

"_No_, Wrex."

"Must be wet varren. Kid, let Garrus go first—they can chew on him until you I shoot them."

Joker's peal of laugher was too loud, but Tali chuckled as well—quietly. Having the little voice in her ear was odd, but helped her see past Wrex's intimidating bulk and mannerisms. "You're going to get me in trouble," Tali mumbled, her radio picking up the soft words.

'_Wow, wouldn't want _that_, would we?'_ After a long pause. "…_not even a_ little _bit? Could be fun. Could be worth it." _

Tali snorted, too loudly.

"Bless you," Garrus grunted, before stalking forward. Wrex cast her a flat-toothed leer—not reassuring, but since he was more inclined to harass Garrus than her, Tali waved a hand as though in solidarity. He couldn't see a returned smile, anyway.

The second set of circuits was harder to shove into place, and she found herself swearing at it—and snapping at Garrus to stay back and let her do it: _she _was the tech powerhouse.

Why _have _her if he wasn't going to let her do her job?

She suspected she knew where the 'I'll do it all!' thing came from…but still. He couldn't do everything, and should focus on what he was good at. She understood wanting to impress someone, to prove oneself, very, very well. Maybe that was what put the steel in her backbone, solidifying her confidence in her own competence.

Garrus was a kind of tech, but he was not _the_ tech.

She was young, yes, but _good _at what she did. She did not need some turian hotshot holding her hand.

The third circuit board was also damaged, and it took her a few minutes to reroute it. "All right, that's got the water back on. Let's find those wet varren—they've got nasty teeth, I hear."

'_Let them be bait. They'd be good at it.'_

"The varren or the boys?" Tali asked very softly.

She jumped when suddenly Joker switched to the team's all-call frequency. '_Hey, we just lost contact with Shepard. I can't raise any of Team One, and we're registering a _massive _spike in geth comm-chatter.' _

"Right," Garrus turned to face Tali and Wrex. "We'll make this quick, and get back to the _Normandy_—Shepard may need extraction. Tali, find those varren, Wrex, you go in first, I'm right behind you."

"You sure _you _don't want to go first, kid?" Wrex asked, almost smugly.

"I would, except that you're using a _shotgun_…old man. I don't want any _accidents_."

'_I should eavesdrop on you people more often. Who needs vids on the extranet? If only I had picture to go with–"_

"I've got two readings," Tali answered, ignoring Joker's input. Now was _not_ the time. "Or, rather, one cluster and a solitary—not a varren. Down that way." She motioned with her omnitool-encased arm in the direction of the lone life-sign. "The water system was sabotaged, it's entirely possible this life-sign might belong to the one who did it. If so, we should find out why."

"Absolutely…Wrex, I'll go first," Garrus rearranged the plan, though plainly having Wrex at his back was still an uncomfortable prospect. "Have your biotics ready. Tali, you're behind Wrex, if there're geth, frag as many as you can, give Wrex and me a minute to reposition."

It seemed to her that Garrus had finally shaken some of that new-leader attitude. Tali's stomach wobbled a little: the radio silence from Shepard's team was worrisome. She could worry about that later. Right now, she could only bring up the rear, and be ready to do what she did best: deal with machines when they inevitably ran into any.

Whether fixing them or breaking them, it was what she did, what she was good at. A little more steel entered her spine, bolstered by a healthy, still-growing confidence in her skills.


	112. Meltdown

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Liara could not take it anymore. The noxious drift was shifting, going from stagnant and rank to a slowly bubbling mess, turning from evil pea-soup green to pernicious mustard yellow to malignant rusty red in slow succession. All around her, shivering and rattling in her bones and teeth, was a palpable impression, but she could not put her finger on what it _was_. It was like hearing the bass of someone's music through a wall or two: the sound itself was inaudible, but the pulse of pressure against her eardrums was perceptible.

Garrus. Shepard had left him in charge, so she would go through him—she _was_ part of the crew, and the soldiers were very firm about non-humans observing chain of command. Or rather, that was the impression she got. Garrus wasn't a fool; in fact, she approved Shepard's choice of him for leading this mission.

She finally broke into shuffling jog to find the turian.

"I'm telling you," Garrus rumbled to Wrex, whose biotic field was flaring as he sought to push several cases into more strategic positions, thus fortifying the colony's position, "if you can't do it, I'll ask Dr. T'S—oh, there you are," Garrus remarked as he turned.

He was lucky, Liara thought as Wrex's drift pulsed malevolently blue-black, that she was in the line of fire. Shepard would flay him alive if he squashed any bystanders…still, Garrus _did _seem pleased with himself. Too much so. "Officer Vakarian…" Liara licked her lips. "I-I really think we should all go back to the ship. Now." She glanced around. She could have sworn she heard something pop…

"We're almost done, we're just putting the finishing touches on things. Perfect, that's great, Wrex."

"Garrus, please don't antagonize the krogan…he looks ready to stomp you into toe spam," Tali declared, dusting her hands off. "We're up and running as far as water and power go."

Liara's brow furrowed at the comment, but she agreed wholly. "Then perhaps we should expedite ourselves…"

"All the action's with Shepard, Doctor," Garrus assured her.

"I'm not so sure, there's something very strange here…"

"What do you mean 'strange'?" Tali asked, crossing her arms.

"I mean there is something very, very wrong here…these people…they're like…like…" Liara gestured, trying helplessly to find words to convey what they were like. "All I know, is that something is _very_ wrong here, and it's going to boil over. Soon. I can _feel_ it, in my very marrow."

By now Garrus looked thoroughly alarmed. "Doctor…here, I'll walk you back to the Normandy and…"

Liara flinched, then went still. It was as if all the background sound had suddenly vanished, a moment of silence before a scream…

Her biotics flared as she backed up, then stopped moving. Her scalp tingled from forehead to tips, the sensation crawling its way down the back of her head and neck. "We've got to go. _Now_…" and when Garrus looked ready to try and soothe her with logical argument she flared further, her tone taking on a more authoritative note than anyone present—herself included—ever expected to hear. "_Now_!" There was no uncertainty, no room for her to consider that she might be wrong, or over-reacting…

…she was right, and in a moment or two everyone would know it…

Abruptly, the general drift of the colony exploded into blazing, white-hot hostility, and for the first time Liara realized _where_ the source was. The source was _underneath them_, and the colonists…the colonists were just little mirrors reflecting the greater whole.

Wrex gave an 'ugh?' of surprise. Glancing past Garrus' shoulder, Liara saw Wrex pivot, having grabbed up a human (with a heavy wrench in hand) and flinging the man aside—no biotics needed.

"Aw _shit_!" Garrus gaped as the colonist hit the ground heavily. "Back to the ship!"

"They're not in their right minds!" Liara shouted, biotically wrenching Wrex's shotgun so all he could shoot would be the ground.

"Watch it, Doc! Don't mess with my shotgun!" Wrex snarled.

On any other day he might have frightened Liara, but in light of the bigger problems all she could hear was the bluster of an old man.

Garrus drew his pistol; a sniper rifle _really _wasn't good for close quarters. "Don't hurt the colonists! Wrex! Cover us!" It was the first time he had anything in common with Wrex: he did not like not being able to use his primary weapon.

"_Joker_," Tali barked over the radio, "the colonists have gone berserk! Prepare for lock down!"

Liara squealed before trying to push a cluster of colonists back. They had begun to trickle into view, moving somewhat jerkily, clearly not quite in control of all their limbs. Her push, weak so as to avoid seriously hurting anyone, barely made them stumble.

Wrex gave an irritated 'can't you do anything useful?' grunt as he pushed the colonists back roughly.

"Come on, Doc!" Garrus grabbed her arm, towing her along with him.

"We can't leave Dr. Chakwas!" Liara wrenched free, shivering with intensity and nerves. It would be easy to run, so easy...but it wouldn't be right. Suddenly, she understood the soldiers much better.

"I can get to her!" Without waiting for confirmation she took off at a run towards the medical building.

"I've got her back!" Tali barked, breaking into a trot, her omnitool flaring about her wrist…though to Garrus it seemed more reflexive to activate the display, since he could not see what good it would do.

"Wrex!" Garrus barked, "We'll meet you at the airlock! _Don't_ kill anyone!" He could not let Tali and Liara—the kids—go after Dr. Chakwas…it was his job to get everyone safely back aboard…

"What about maiming?" the krogan demanded angrily.

"No!" That _would_ be a question Wrex would ask…

"What do you want, Vakarian? Me to hand them a bunch of roses?" Wrex snarled as he made a sweeping motion with his hand, sending a gaggle of colonists higgledy-piggledy.

"Improvise! Just get your ass back to the ship!"


	113. Pound Ground

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Dr. Chakwas closed the supply locker and exhaled deeply. It was strange, perhaps stranger than it should be. Accepting help after such a long stint of self-reliance might come as a difficult thing for these colonists. Feros was _not _a world she would pick for colonization; it was far too bleak, with far too few prospects. 'Scratching out a living' seemed more appropriate to this place than any other she ever saw or heard of.

However, the attitude of repulsing even basic questions troubled her. If it wasn't 'talk to Fai Dan', it was 'we'll be all right'.

In her professional opinion, she doubted it. However, she could do little more, and made up her mind to collect Liara and go. She had already tended the colonist Garrus' team had brought back, semi-conscious, and periodically raving until she finally sedated him.

Tali said he was clearly responsible for some of the problems the colony was having.

The colony certainly had problems, though her scan of the water—she wanted to kick herself for foolishness—turned up no abnormalities.

A strangled shout made her jump. As she pivoted she let out a shout of her own and reflexively swung her black bag at the colonist charging towards her, eyes wide and maddened, mouth open and fingers extended as though to wrap around her throat.

The bag connected solidly with the side of the colonist's head, but to little effect. Dr. Chakwas hit the ground, successfully elbowing the colonist in the face while she struggled to keep his hands away from her neck. A swift repeat of the action caused the man to reel back.

She scuttled away, her hand diving into her black bag. She did not aim the weapon, but struggled to her feet and with her teeth clenched, pistol-whipped the colonist with a strength and ferocity that would have done any one of her marines credit.

The sudden attack left her shocked, but not from being attacked. It was like she had staggered into a horror film, the behavior of the colonist was not usual…

The man's wife came staggering out of the medbay, clearly in the same state of inexplicable insanity.

Breathing hard, Dr. Chakwas dropped her black bag, grabbed a sedative spray and started forward. Even doctors went through basic training, and while hers was a long time ago, she remembered her extreme situation medical training.

The kind of training when a patient escaped after going berserk.

She jammed her pistol into the pocket of her white medical jacket, causing the garment to hang awkwardly, the weapon beating mercilessly against her thigh. Dr. Chakwas ducked the flailing arms, landing a blow with her fist in the woman's kidney. The pain stalled the colonist long enough for Dr. Chakwas to turn sharply, grab the shoulder nearest to her, and shove the sedative spray into the flesh of the colonist's neck.

Dr. Chakwas did not wait to watch the woman sag onto the ground, like a deflating balloon. She darted for her bag, freed her pistol, and headed for the entrance to the medical prefab. She could not lock it down, she could only make her way to the ship, and pray she did not have to employ the pistol.

She might be willing to shoot to defend a patient…but there was something out of the ordinary here, and she would rather get to the ship without causing casualties.

The door at the end of the facility opened with a bang. Dr. Chawkas leveled the pistol, but dropped it again as Liara's voice reached her. "Doctor!"

"We've got to go! Now!" Dr. Chakwas strode up to the asari to find Tali and an anxious-looking Garrus behind her. "There is something wrong with these people, we should go back to the ship and wait. We can run scans from there, and they don't have the equipment to scuff the _Normandy_, much less get inside."

The sound of soft bodies hitting the ground like a handful of beanbags tossed by an enthusiastic child made Liara flinch. "I take it," Dr. Chakwas noted dryly, "that Wrex is covering us?"

"Close enough, come on, Doc." Garrus waved her to come out.

Dr. Chakwas ushered Tali and Liara ahead of her, her calm manner—which served her so well when soldiers came to her two steps away from being hamburger—did not betray her own pounding heart and racing thoughts. She did not doubt Garrus' capacity as a leader, but she worried about Liara; the asari was not used to soldiers or soldiering. Of all those present, she was the one most likely to do something foolish, and it was her—Dr. Chakwas'—job to make sure that did not happen.

Garrus dropped back for a moment, before the ground shook under Wrex's heavy footfalls.

They were moving at a jog, almost to the corridor that would lead them to the docking piers.

Liara gave a screech as colonists, apparently having come up the outer edge of the colony, poured across the entrance. Even as she screamed, she flared brilliantly and batted a hand like a kitten trying to push away a tickling finger.

The biotic wave caught the colonists like someone sweeping clutter off a worktop. Liara pivoted, raising her other hand, and the wave became a wall, blocking the colonists' progress.

If they wanted to give chase, they would have to double back. "Keep going! They're going to get around sooner or later!" Liara began to back up, guided by Dr. Chakwas' hand around her upper arm so the asari would not trip, fall, or stagger into anyone else.

As soon as Liara lost visual, she let the wall go, her biotic aura vanishing.

Dr. Chakwas let go of Liara's arm. With this head start, they could surely make the _Normandy _before the colonists caught up.


	114. Crunch

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard took a slow breath, forcing herself to be a 'good' soldier about this. She wished Elizabeth had been able to contain herself, but the girl was not a soldier or used to playing chicken. It would have been better to take Jeong down from a distance, before he knew what was happening.

The look Alenko had shot her as they reluctantly broke cover confirmed his agreement with the assessment.

However, her disgust with the situation was exacerbated now, with the muzzle of that pistol waving around in her face, veering off this way and that to catch her crewmen in its lethal sights.

This corporate monkey was going to get someone killed and—newsflash—it was _not_ going to be her, or her crewmen, or any of these ExoGeni survivors. Shepard did not like thinking of people in the terms of 'most expendable' to 'least expendable', but if she had to, she knew where Jeong fell without applying much brainpower.

"Jeong," the word came out cold as ice and flat as a steel plate, "Don't point that weapon around at my crewmen. Don't put that thing in my face unless you intend to use it." She narrowed her eyes, meeting Jeong's brown ones, her expression clearly saying _do _not _test me._

He didn't listen. He was also looking at the wrong threat.

Jeong called her bluff, stepping back as he stabilized the weapon…

He never had time to think; Shepard never went for her pistol.

Alenko, knowing full well that Shepard was leaning on him to handle this, flared up like a lit match. Jeong did not have time to do more than flick his eyes to the light source of biotic glow before he collapsed to the ground, contained in a stasis field before he even realized what was happening. Alenko had not needed orders, or even a covert look.

This way was fast, easy, and probably for the best in the long run. There was no need for Shepard to try sweet-talking—there was no time—nor need to shoot Jeong and be done with (though Shepard was not opposed to doing so). No, this way was much better in the grand scheme of things . Reasoning with the fink later, when time allowed for real negotiations would undoubtedly occur. Shepard fully intended to see how far her negotiating skills reached in regards to speaking corporate.

However, a crazy brainwashing plant-thing photosynthesizing amok (she could not really say 'running amok') was a bigger problem than an ExoGeni stooge with a warped sense of acceptable losses and collateral damage. The Thorian was more important, right now.

"Neatly done," Shepard approved wholeheartedly, cutting her mental processing short.

This was one of the reasons she liked having Alenko around on the ground: they tended to work on similar brainwaves, and he added a whole new dimension to conflict resolution. Had she been off duty, she might have admitted that it was still fascinating to watch him 'do that thing'. As it stood, she smiled at the old phraseology, and stuck to the business at hand. "Can I get that gun away from him? Will the field stop me, I mean?" She had never had occasion to try and reach through a biotic field.

Not a friendly one, anyway.

"I'll do it," Alenko answered slowly, as though he was caught in a stare. Shepard knew how careful he was about using his biotics, so the distracted tone did not surprise her. Carefully, neatly, the pistol extricated itself from Jeong's hand, floated free of the containing stasis field, and hovered in the air at Alenko's slow gesture.

It struck her suddenly that part of these slow movements and his apparent delayed responses were for the benefit of the ExoGeni workers, who might or might not have had any experience with biotics. He did not want to make them any more nervous than they already were by making what he did look easy.

Trust Alenko to think about something like that.

-J-

Alenko grit his teeth, and the hovering weapon crunched into a tennis ball-sized lump of scrap before he dropped it. The crunch as it crushed and the clunk as it fell gave him a deep-seated satisfaction. He did not need to crush it into a smaller wreck of metal: one demonstration of power was all it took to make his point.

Jeong, somewhere in that slippery weasel mind, would realize _he_ could have easily been scrunched up _just_ like that firearm and with a lot less effort. Guns were tough; humans were, as was constantly being pointed out, 'squishy'. He did not _want_ to warp anyone into ketchup, but his affirmation to himself after Eden Prime—of not holding back, not letting his leeriness of his own powers put his team in danger—held firm. He would if he had to; but only if he _had_ to.

"I do _not_ get tired of watching you do that!" Williams shook her head in his peripheral vision, striding over to the remains of the weapon. "You think anyone will mind if I keep this? My sisters would love it…and love you to sign it, too, come to think of it. Commander? Lieutenant?"

He didn't mind; it sounded like a good idea. He couldn't do anything with it: there was no way he was sending his mother a ruined pistol as a conversation piece.

"Don't distract Alenko, Chief." Shepard's tone clearly indicated she was not entirely in earnest. "Anyone got any cuffs or something for this slug? I'm not going to ask Alenko to drag his ass all the way back to the _Normandy_."

Alenko did not say anything to this, his eyes focused to the exclusion of all else, on the glowing field containing Jeong. It took an effort not to change the stasis field to something more uncomfortable—nothing _lethal_, just enough for Jeong to know marines did not take it kindly when civilian pukes of his ilk pointed guns at their friends.


	115. Five Points

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

_Boom_. Shepard's shotgun roared, and the _thing_ at which she aimed exploded in a shower of fragments, kelp-like goo, and clear slime. All three marines caught more than a little of it, to their collective shock.

"Oh _gross_!" Shepard gasped, for a moment knocked out of professional soldier mode, trying to figure out how to wipe slime and...bits...from her visor without streaking it to the point of not being able to see. And how glad she was she had thought to put the visor down in the first place! She could smell the putrid odor—like a public bathroom cleaned with cheap (and not enough) cleaner. Only worse.

Like an _elcor_ bathroom, cleaned with cheap (and not enough) cleaner.

She could not imagine what it would be like to get it on her skin, or worse, in her eyes. Nothing pleasant. Anyway, it was bad enough just having it on her armor. Could the slime get through ballistic mesh? She did not want to think about the answer.

Alenko, too, ignored the sight and smell, checking their six in case anything meant to sneak up behind them. Judging from the groaning roar the thing let off just before Shepard pumped it full of lead, sneaking was not something these…things…did particularly well. Still, it never hurt to be cautious.

"Wh-what _is_ it?" Williams demanded, gazing in some disgust at what was, moments before, a human shaped green thing. The slime on her visor, while absolutely repugnant, was not hurting her any, so she focused on the thing most likely to have caused her problems.

Shepard knelt, ignoring the putrid smell of the goo now that the initial reaction to the smell had passed. Alenko once again saw why she was the Commander, and why he was happy being a lieutenant. She touched the goo with gloved fingers, rubbing them together speculatively. He did not mind getting his hands dirty, in fact sometimes it was a good thing…but zombie guts?

He knew, by the phrase 'zombie guts' he'd spent too much time talking with Joker, who was strangely fond of very old cult classic sci-fi/horror movies. Celluloid-age movies—movies older than Shepard's Macarena. He was also unashamed of it.

"It's not _human_," Shepard concluded, having scanned the sample with her omni-tool. "It's…well, it's, it's…" she struggled to give it a name, partly because she could not even pronounce the list of stuff comprising the sample. "Call it veggie-zombie, it's easier."

Williams laughed, but Alenko choked, causing both women to turn to face him. "First intergalactic zombies, now veggie-zombies? Are we even _awake_?" he joked, trying to cover his statement at finding himself on the same page as Shepard. First husks, now these things…

Veggie-zombies, indeed. That would be one to write home about.

The women exchanged looks, grinning, partly because they had to admit too many zombies _were_ too many zombies. This galaxy was too full of them for comfort. Shepard got to her feet, charging her shotgun before making sure the grenade launcher was easy to get to. If she had to lob grenades further than she could by hand, she did not want the weapon too loose in the weapon rack…but she wanted it handy.

"Call them Thorian by-products if you want to. Doesn't matter. This is a rescue mission, so no shooting the colonists, unless there's _no_ viable alternative." Shepard did not feel it necessary to say so, but felt something should be said before she opened the heavy doors separating the Skyway from the descent to the colony. "Everyone got their grenades?" She loosed one from her belt, falling back on the meticulous pre-battle checks she so favored. If nothing else, they boosted green marines' confidences. Here, it just served to get minds off jokes and back on business.

Alenko and Williams could have easily made the shift themselves, but it was part of her job as team lead to see that they did not have to.

"Ready," Williams affirmed, pulling a grenade loose, gripping it tightly.

Alenko wiggled his right fingers, taking a grenade in his left hand. He did not need to worry about being able to throw effectively. Biotics could be easily adapted to so many situations, which gave him a better throwing arm than any baseball pitcher. "Let's do this."

Shepard moved to the open/close panel to the garage, poising her hand to brush it. Her heart fluttered in her chest, a stark contrast to the cold sense of 'get down to it'. All she had to do was to remember green bad, human good—just in case the herbicide (or whatever it was) failed to work on the veggie-zombies.

She could not believe she was actually using that term as a description. It would probably show up in the after action report, too. Well, at least that would be good reading for someone. "Oh, yeah, one more thing before we go in," Shepard pulled her hand away from the pad, smirking behind her slimed-up visor at her teammates. "The green ones are five points each."

"We counting spatter points extra?" Williams asked cheekily.

"Ha ha, no." Snickers at the grim humor crossed the air to mingle with her own. No sense in letting nerves fray. It was easier to kick in a door when one did not feel panicky. Panic was bad. They all knew it firsthand.

Alenko mentally shook his head, half-disbelieving. Even now, he could hardly believe some days the difference between Shepard as presented in the media and Shepard in person. _Only_ Shepard could joke about things like geth and…_zombies_…being worth five points apiece—though no one who only knew her by the media could ever know that.

Well, she was the type to keep score, too—at least, keep track of the kills she could take credit for—so he had better put his game face on.

Shepard abruptly palmed the door open, stepping boldly forward to lob a grenade at the first human lifesigns flickering on her HUD.


	116. Freedom

Beta-read by Saberlin.

A quick heads-up: this is a piece from an odd perspective, so it's going to read a little differently than previous pieces.

-J-

Suffocating. Alien thoughts slithering through her mind, wriggling like a bowl full of noodles stirred with a fork. Skin crawling, as though about to crawl off her in protest of the dark, wet, viscous environment to which she was consigned. She could not fight, she could not resist…she could only…

…_be_.

And every so often it _convulsed_, as if trying to take an imprint of her before relaxing again…but there was no space, nowhere to go. Muscles protested the cramped position, her mind struggled to call itself her own…but the trap was too perfect.

Fear and betrayal quivered in that part of her mind still her own, like a tiny room of fresh air…but the air was rapidly leaking out. At this rate she would simply stop thinking and then…what? Lie here in the dark, vegetative? Be processed for sustenance?

The Thorian gripped at her again, crunching her ribs together and deflating her lungs, squeezing the breath out of her as the Thorian slime in the tiny pod rose up, past her shoulders. She craned her head, but ended up choking as the fluid rose, spilling into her mouth, inundating her sense of taste with something beyond description.

Then the pressure was gone, permitting her to cough and hack as best she could in her tiny prison. Was it poisonous? Her armor kept most of the mess out but…

She shuddered. She had shouted and nearly screamed herself hoarse when she realized what had happened. Now, she couldn't scream, she could only wait for some inevitable, probably unpleasant end.

She fell still, raising one hand to rest against the slimy side of her prison, ears pricked. She thought…she thought she heard something…not geth gunfire, either. Then a screech, unlike anything she had ever heard, almost deafening…

…and she realized the scream must have come from the Thorian itself. There was no other accounting for its being so loud in her ears. Water—or any fluid—conducted sound and this…node…was still part of the Thorian's network of…

…call them roots. She was not even sure what to call them otherwise, seeing as how the thing was more animal than plant. At least, she had never seen, in her three centuries, any plant like this, nor anything so foul.

She expected the squeeze this time, but even taking a deep breath to prevent it from collapsing her chest (and hopefully allowing her to keep that slime out of her mouth) did not help much. When the crush finally ceased she slumped, weak, and lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. Was that…could it be a last, desperate attempt to…to what?

What was going on out there? The sound of gunfire was close, so close…

This was a human colony…had the humans' military arm finally sent help? She had not expected them to: the geth were a powerful deterrent, especially after Eden Prime.

"We've almost got it!" The voice, muffled by the prison's walls, was masculine.

"Tell me when we _have_ got it!" This voice, female, carried the distinctive note of command, followed by more gunfire.

A sharp shriek, female but not that of the last speaker, penetrated the leathery walls more clearly.

"Alenko! Throw!"

There was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground before a second mass slammed into her protective node. She struggled, joints protesting the moment of impact. She had to fight not to find herself slipping beneath the liquid padding of the cell.

Gunfire, not one but three distinctive weapons' worth, erupted, along with an inarticulate shout of frustration.

The Thorian shrieked, so loudly she screamed, railing at the sound that reverberated in her head, making her teeth ache. She slipped beneath the surface as the node trembled. The noise grew louder, something rumbled and then…

…silence.

"Hey! Do you see that?" The second female demanded.

The words were distorted by the liquid in her ears, in her eyes, in her mouth…she was going to drown in here!

"I see it! Cover me!" The first woman snapped, but not angrily. A little tired, strained, riding high on adrenaline…

"Commander, that's _not _a good idea…"

"Look who's talking, LT," but the second woman's words were almost inaudible: plainly the 'LT' was allowed to pretend he had not heard them…or soft enough that the speaker could disavow them.

"This whole colony wasn't a good idea," the first woman muttered.

Pressure appeared on the leather nodule's surface, pressing here and there as though mapping out where the contents were. She could hear the woman's drift, a stone-solid determination, fizzling frustration, an undercurrent of several shades of worry…

With a grunt, a puncture appeared in the lathery sac, shattering all attempts to listen in on drift. With a struggle, the liquid began to drain, hitting the ground in torrents as a heavy duty knife was dragged through the node, worked and wrenched by a strong arm.

"Come on…" the woman snarled, pulling at the knife and at the loose flap of the sac.

The woman jumped back as Shiala flopped out of the nodule, landing on the first major bone in her back amidst the rest of the sac's gooey contents. She coughed several times, the glow of omnitools catching but not holding her attention. First of all, she had to get the unclean filth out of her system…

The air was cool, clean, as it flowed into her lungs.

"Hey, that's the asari," the second woman's voice, aggressive in nervousness, noted.

Shiala, (for she could call herself by name now, could feel as though she had her own distinct identity) lifted her head as she untangled herself to sit with her back against the wall, knees drawn up. She was not sure she could stand, just yet. "Thank you," she said as steadily as she could, her throat protesting words, as she shivered. Her scalp did not like the sudden change from warm dampness to cool dryness. "You have…set me free. I am grateful."

She never appreciated what freedom really was…until now.


	117. Drowning

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

If anyone had reservations about letting an asari mess with Shepard's mind, Shepard's were certainly the strongest. However, she knew what her options were, and none of them were viable. This was a race between Saren and herself…and he was winning. She suspected Alenko would volunteer to let the asari…do whatever she was going to do…if Shepard showed too much reticence.

It would be a very sweet gesture, but all in all ineffective, since he didn't have the beacon's message rattling around in his brainpan. And she did not want to get him on _that_ topic again.

Nor was Williams' apparent willingness to cap the asari any more helpful.

"Do what you've got to do. This is a race and we're not winning." Her words surprised her, coming out calm, almost bored. She did not think she fooled Alenko, not with the way he inched a little closer to her shoulder, looming up behind her.

She doubted the asari was intimidated by one human biotic, but it was another Alenkoism she appreciated. She would not mind admitting—to herself at least—she felt safest when he was watching her back.

"Try to relax, Commander," the asari held up her hands, though whether it was necessary or not, none of the three humans knew. "Slow, deep breaths."

Shepard's silent 'yeah right' was accompanied by classic signs of stress, increased heartbeat, increased breathing, the works. Suddenly, she did not want to do this.

"Reach out to grasp the threads that bind us." Shepard tried to stop the struggle of her mind recoiling from this new experience. Unbidden, memory of Odysseus came to mind, as he tied his hands to the wheel of his ship, so he could not follow the sirens' call.

She should have followed suit and kept her mind to herself...

"Every action sends ripples across the galaxy. Every idea must touch another mind to live. Each emotion must mark another's spirit. We are all connected. Every single being united in a single glorious existence. Open yourself to the universe, Commander. _Embrace eternity_."

Shepard gave a choked gasp, her face turning sheet white as images seared across her mind.

Alenko was the first to realize it was not just the smell of the Thorian, or stress letting off: it was both those things multiplied by the asari poking around in Shepard's head.

Shepard was drowning. She could not breathe, she could not swallow. All the information, the images, sounds, impressions pounding through her skull, distending the bones, filling her up in the most uncomfortable way possible, squeezing her innards out of place…

…she was drowning, and there was no one to stop it. Ideas, thoughts, things she could not name gushed out of her, clogging mouth and nose, oozing from eyes and ears, cutting her off, immersing her.

Her knees buckled, but the actual fall seemed painfully slow. Arms reached out to catch her, though she could not be sure if they were trying to help or trying to drown her faster. Her eyes remained locked on the black asari eyes. She did not even realize her eyes were open…or perhaps they were not, and she simply saw the asari's eyes within her mind.

She hit the ground, her eyes finally dropping. She would have fallen further, face forward into the dirt, but the supporting arms remained just that, supporting.

"What did you _do_?" Williams demanded, her voice shrill as the asari stepped back, looking dizzy. It was unlike Shepard to just collapse, much less as though someone had her in a low-grav field.

Alenko, having helped Shepard to the ground, continued to hold her in a kneeling position. She kept mouthing, and he was not sure she was really breathing. "Shepard? Shepard." More than her slow crumble, it was the unresponsiveness that worried him. Yes, Saren could take the Cipher, but Shepard was human, and humans were so fragile.

It had nothing to do with skin, muscles, or bone density…it was simply a fact.

She took a deep breath, like one coming up for air, her balance shifting. Her legs uncoiled as she sat down, almost panting, but still very pale. She looked around, taking stock of faces. It seemed to take a few moments to put names with them, as though she were wading through floodwaters to reach familiar landmarks.

Alenko wordlessly knelt and helped her to her feet, aware of how heavily she was leaning on him, as though her balance was all but destroyed.

As far as Shepard was concerned, she had no balance. She was not even sure she had _feet_.

Shiala blinked a few more times, rubbing her hand against her temple.

"Hey, I asked you…" Williams started up, glancing at Shepard, who was still leaning heavily on Alenko, one arm around his shoulders to keep herself upright.

"It's okay, Chief…" Shepard intervened, her words slurred as though she was not used to saying them. "It's not…it still doesn't make any sense…" She had hoped it would. Now it was worse, a half-understood nightmare.

"It will take time," Shiala noted, "for your mind to process all that information."

"You look…you look pretty queasy, we should get you back to the ship."

"Don't say 'queasy', Chief…" Shepard still struggled against the sense that she was drowning. She began to shake. As she did so, she looked up at Alenko. "Don't let me drown…"

The truly frightened plea went unnoticed by Williams, masked by Shiala's next comment, "I am sorry if you have suffered, but there was no other way."

Alenko shifted his grip, nodding to the asari to let her know the words were noted, before shepherding Shepard towards the ship. The fear of somehow slipping beneath the surface of everything suddenly crammed into her mind was heart wrenching in such a strong, capable person. "Don't worry, I've got you."

Shepard accepted the assurance, that someone had a close eye on her and would pull her into the air again if she went under, gratefully.


	118. Overload

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Shepard's head pounded, her brain sloshing this way and that as her thoughts forced the morass of the Cipher to settle. It was like convection in her head: her thoughts providing the current of rising and falling that caused the whole mess to move.

"You okay, Skipper?" Williams asked, her dark eyebrows knitted together.

"Fine, just a little woozy."

Alenko had to half-carry her back onto the ship, but by the time she got her zombie goo-covered plates off, she could stand unassisted—though she wobbled a bit. She would not hear of waiting to get a shower. The crew could _not_ have a meeting about the events on Feros until the ground team got the smell of veggie-zombie off them.

"Uh-huh." Williams did not comment further, leaving it at the 'you're not fooling me' tone.

Shepard knew Williams was doing the same thing Alenko would have done if she had not been in a 'women only' zone. Williams was making sure she did not pass out, or have some kind of alien-induced seizure. Shepard might have groused about this at one time, but between liking Williams and Alenko—and learning to appreciate the concern—she agreed with them.

With her head feeling as it did, she did not want help out of shouting distance. It was embarrassing to admit, but that was the truth.

Normally the showers were a chatty place, but cleaning the zombie goo off took a good deal of concentration, so the process started with a long span of silence. The stuff had, in places, worked its way through the ballistic mesh and mingled with the dust of Feros, where it turned to a sticky mess that Shepard could neither define nor accurately describe…

If people knew just what kind of stuff Spectres ended up crawling through while 'saving the galaxy'—even if crawling through slime did not happen on a daily basis—the number of takers and wannabes might decrease. The veggie-zombie goo was enough to make someone of moderate constitution throw up at first whiff.

"Do you know what this stuff is like?" Williams' voice demanded from outside the darkness of Shepard's closed eyes. "It's like..._baby snot_!" Williams finally sat down to scrub at a stubborn patch of the crusting slime on her ankle.

It was too dangerous to scrub hard while standing on one foot.

Shepard snorted in amusement, and to her embarrassment cleared her nose in the process. At least, she thought as she shoved her face under the water on the pretext of washing it, the smell of veggie-zombie was out of her nostrils. Still…given the new topic of conversation, spraying sludge was gross in more than one context. "Baby snot?" Maybe Williams had the right idea, and it would be a good idea to follow suit…sitting down, that was…

…but Shepard did not feel like answering the question 'are you okay?' anymore today. She was a marine: she was tough. She had to be.

Or so she told herself, a small, unbiased part of her mind noted dryly.

"Oh yeah," said the invisible Williams, with grim surety. "The kind that makes them look like little glazed donut holes…you've got to use one of those little sucker things to get it out…"

Shepard snorted again, a vague memory of playing with a little blue globe and tube she did not understand the use of as a child swimming to the surface of her overcrowded mind. She regretted the expression of amusement this time, her breathing changing as her equilibrium shifted uncontrollably. She put one hand on the cold, wet wall for support, trying to regain her sense of balance. The cold seemed to shock her, as though her hand was hypersensitive; chill snaked its way up to her elbow, making the heel of her hand ache.

Suddenly the air was too thick, too hot, too moist to breathe. She cleared her throat and began to breathe through her mouth, slow, deep lungfuls in hopes of clearing her head. She should have known better, the air's moisture content being what it was. The warmth seemed to hold additional moisture, which then condensed and pooled, hot in the bottom of her lungs, taking up room that could be used for oxygen...

Williams gave a short laugh of amusement at something not funny at the time. "I used to babysit a lot when I was a kid: believe me, moms do _a lot_ of dirty jobs. It's not just changing diapers and wiping up…that stuff kids spit up. Although…these zombies make me wonder if being a marine is any better." She chuckled, glad to break the silence. "I mean, we marines have to put up with crap too—though we tend to get it from the brass or in our boot treads. We also see at lot of bodily harm, and I can handle that. But the whole veggie-zombie thing is pushing the limits. You know what this _smells_ like, don't you?"

In her mind's eye, Shepard could almost see Williams gesticulating with the soap to emphasize her point. "Sure…a port-a-john that hasn't been cleaned…ever…"

"_Exactly._"

"Nng…" Her head was swimming, and she couldn't seem to find a way to rebalance herself. The imbalance was worse than ever and not abating…

"Skipper?" Williams had stood back up again, scum free to see Shepard leaning against the wall, partly obscured by the partition separating the stalls. "You okay?"

"...I'm going to fall..." Shepard leaned on the wall, closing her eyes as though she could stop the impending disaster.

It didn't work.

She never felt her knees give out, or felt her head slam into the wall as she toppled forward. She never heard Williams' shout of panic, or knew how she got into the medbay.

Yet even in an unconscious state, the Cipher beat itself against the confines of her mind, not like a cat clawing up a cushion but like a bear throwing itself around to try widening a den that wouldn't _get _wider.


	119. Seeking Solace

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard woke, shivering with cold. Or was it just shivering? She rolled onto one side, her brain oozing disconsolately inside her skull. Yes, she shook from the cold...and other things. Her head felt crammed, as if her brain had liquefied for the express purpose of making room for everything else now packed in there. Carefully, she peered onto the floor. The blanket draped across her had fallen off, though why she should feel so cold escaped her.

She could not reach the blanket without moving her head, and every motion made her entire world lurch unpleasantly. Too much of that and she would find out how many meals she had missed. She rolled slowly onto her other side, curling up as tightly as she could before realizing she was not, as she expected, alone. Alenko sat in a chair nearby, his head drooping forward, arms crossed, plainly asleep.

Something warm kindled in Shepard's chest.

Before the _Normandy_, she would not have cared much if anyone waited for her to come to or not. But it was nice to know Alenko cared, despite the possibility of generating talk. And talk could be dangerous. Fortunately, if she craned her head (ever so carefully) she could see Dr. Chakwas' bunk, folded down, with the doctor on it. Things were fine, then. "Ksst."

Alekno's face twitched before he blinked rapidly. Seeing she was awake, he shifted to face her. "Hey."

"We've got to stop meeting like this," Shepard grinned ruefully. "People'll start to talk."

Alenko gave her one of those earnest smiles, relieved she could joke at all. For a few minutes after Williams started shouting from the showers, he honestly thought Shepard's brain had overloaded, ending in her premature death. Some last trick of a sneaky asari.

Dr. Chakwas, thankfully, discounted that early on. He gave the asari a quick mental apology. This hunt for Saren had him seeing treachery everywhere, it seemed. "How are you?"

"If I move my head, the world starts lurching around...and I thought driving the Mako was bad." Shepard managed another grin, but winced.

Alenko could see her shivering, something becoming more pronounced by the moment. He could not tell if she was cold or if it was nervous system overload. Getting up stiffly, he walked to the other side of the table upon which she lay and picked up the fallen blanket. He should, he chided himself, have been awake to see it fall.

Shepard curled up as the thermal wrap settled over her. "Thanks..."

"No problem. Can I...is there anything you need?"

Shepard shook her head, forgetting she should not and closed her eyes with a grunt of discomfort. "No, no, just the blanket. Thank you. What happened?" She remembered a rushing sound, very loud, drowning out everything, all five senses suddenly obliterated by a rushing tide in her ears...but it was not a _sound, more as though _though her brain were suddenly blanketed in 'snow'.

"You passed out. According to Williams you clocked your head on the wall, then clocked it _again_ when you hit the ground." Which resulted in the lovely lavender bruise on her forehead.

Shepard pondered for along moment, stringing events together. She still trembled, but not as badly as before. "Williams?"

"She was here a couple hours ago. We've been kind of worried about you." Alenko shrugged, brushing it off.

"I appreciate it." Shepard closed her eyes. "What have I missed?"

"Pressly's pulling his beard out. The Council wants a word with you. Dr. Chakwas told them in that oh-so-effective style of hers that you were injured, and under medical supervision. You would contact them once _she_ determined you capable of doing so. She made it sound like you were dying." Alenko had 'overheard' most of this conversation, and admired the doctor more than ever for her handling of it.

"I'll bet the turian councilor's got his fingers crossed."

"Probably. Well, a little disappointment can't hurt him…and it'll be a good boost to morale from where I'm sitting."

Shepard's rueful grin became absolutely wicked. "Can't wait to break news of my recovery to him. Where are we?"

"Still hanging around Feros. Pressly wanted to take us back to the Citadel, but Dr. Chakwas put her foot down. You can't recover if the Council's raking you over the coals."

Shepard swallowed, gratitude rushing up in her. It was asking too much to have her hobble all over the Citadel. "You get all that zombie goo out of your armor?"

"_Ha!" Alenko settled back in his chair. "Williams went at it with a toothbrush_—not her own—and says it _still_ doesn't smell right." It was not hard to smile at the comment, though no one had been smiling at the time.

"What'd you do with yours?"

"Bagged it up after trying to scrub it clean. We bagged yours up, too. I think we're going to have to call everything contaminated and send it to biohaz for disposal."

Shepard chuckled softly in the darkness. "Sounds good to me. When that first one exploded...yeesh." She shuddered, then the shudder became more violent. Alenko made to get up but Shepard started. "Hey...wait, whoa..." Gracelessly, she managed to hook her fingers on his elbow.

She looked truly vulnerable, as if unsure whether she had acted wisely or not. It was dark in here, though, cold, and she did not fancy trying to get to sleep. A disquieting noise seemed to ring in her ears, like words without context, or a conversation she could not quite hear. She did not want to be alone with that. "You don't need to wake Doctor Chakwas."

Alenko glanced at the sleeping doctor, and then hesitantly covered Shepard hand. Her fingers were chill, almost icy between his hand and his arm. "You're still that cold?"

"It's not as bad as it was…just spacer syndrome." When Alenko did not look as though he believed her, she dredged up a disarming smile. "If you really want to help…just sit and talk with me."


	120. Aftermath

Beta-read by Saberlin

Timeframe: the crew has just had their post-Feros meeting.

Please not that most of Liara's observations are not words when she gained them firsthand; just images, pictures and impressions. We don't know a lot about the asari melding, so I'm filling in.

-J-

Liara dropped into her chair and hunched forward, resting her chin on her arms. She needed a few minutes to sift through the morass in her mind, to straighten out the jumble, organize it into some semblance of sense and continuity.

The first time she looked into Shepard's mind to see the Beacon's vision had been awkward. The human mind felt very…odd. It was a mix of strength and weakness, of rigidity and flexibility, a mass of contradictions and conflicts. A real mess, if truth be told, though from what she understood, a great deal of Shepard's life had been a mess.

A mess easy to find on the extranet, since she was not in Shepard's confidences, so as to be let into the commander's personal history.

The beacon's message itself was so strong it seemed not etched but _seared _into Shepard's mind. It seemed to blast her back, like hot air suddenly escaping from a pent up space…like on Therum. If the beacon's message was _that _strong second-hand…by all rights it should have killed Shepard.

The first time she looked at it, after Therum, it was confused, like watching something on a vid-screen...but at the time both their minds were keyed up.

And Shepard's mind had, on that occasion, tried to shut itself down in defense against an outsider's intrusion, despite the commander's conscious efforts. Perhaps that had buffered the intensity? No, not to that extent...maybe the stinging backlash was just the result of a strong stimulus and a strong capacity for recall—an amplification due to repetition.

Or maybe it was because Shepard's mind not cringing this time, but bracing for something unpleasant. Regardless, even from the perspective of someone used to watching details and making decisions based on those details, the message was…twisted. Incomplete.

This time, though, she saw it more clearly, both the vision and the impression of where the vision…was lodged. She could see the 'bruising' such an assault on the mind could leave, like the dents left by a hammer when putting a stubborn nail into a wall. Now the Cipher roared in the background of the Commander's mind, as much noise like bullets fired off en masse, evidence of spray and pray (as Shepard said).

It didn't matter why the intensity had changed so drastically.

It was only this second time looking at the message, now that the Cipher was in place, like a corrective lens, that she realized the beacon was damaged. The message was incomplete, which might be why Shepard survived…or why there was so much damage in the first place, visible only to those who could see and knew what to look for.

She could sense that—whatever else—the other asari, Shiala, _had _been exquisitely careful when transferring the Cipher to Shepard. Liara approved: whatever the side effects were, Shiala could not have controlled _those_.

But impressions had moved in the background, perceptible before and after she locked onto the beacon's message. Liara had, this time, taken great pains to keep her presence in Shepard's mind unobtrusive, as hard to detect as possible. It did not help that impressions of 'asari equals mind probe', 'asari equals no concept of personal space', 'asari equals imminent discomfort of one form or another' kept skittering about like frightened fish.

It was also painfully true, and Liara felt a stab of guilt. Shepard _did_ seem to be having more 'no other choice' mind probes recently. The beacon, in her opinion, warranted the term 'gross mental insult'.

So she did what she was expected to do: re-process the vision for Shepard, acting as a third party observer who could see the whole clearly rather than the noise, the jumble of light, sound, and...well, _thought_.

She _meant _to do it quickly, and did…

…yet, she also allowed her curiosity some free reign, letting let her peripheral attention drift.

'Nothing invasive!' as she would quickly exclaim if caught. More…minor curiosity.

When she claimed, as last time, that the joining was exhausting she was exaggerating a little. She wanted time to think and process. She also did _not _want _anyone _to even _suspect_ she might have been poking around where she was not really wanted.

Like a nosy houseguest.

She had learned more than she wanted. She would not classify Shepard's mind as a dark one…more one of gray neutrality with lots of dark things boxed up and stacked haphazardly in the corners. There was less of the methodical machine than one might expect from Shepard's behavior. Less of the cold logic with which Shepard approached so many situations.

Both were learned behaviors, more things of practice than natural inclination. She caught the natural inclination in catches and fragments, like a child laughing and calling to playmates in the distance.

There were hard choices, logically made, but tempered when possible by compassion or some sense of 'greater good'.

There were painful memories that still ached from time to time, like a joint that has been operated on reacting to bad weather.

There was guilt, much of it misplaced, shouldered because there was no one else _to_ shoulder it. A sensation of drowning in the role she never wanted, but was filling anyway. Fear—the creeping fear that maybe she really was on the path to losing it.

Liara was not sure what 'it' was, but suspected the pronoun was actually part of a humanism, and not to be taken literally.

All showed signs of Shepard trying to blunt them by determination not to sink into the mire of pointless angst, mourning for things she could not change.

At the very bottom of the morass was something unexpected—unexpected even to Shepard herself. A certain warm feeling that—for whatever reason—the Commander seemed to think she had lost the ability to feel. Its sudden appearance worried the commander, as well, as though she teetered on the verge of jerking back from it as though it were a hot surface.

Lt. Alenko should consider himself very fortunate indeed.


	121. Critique

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Shepard tried not to sag with something akin to total exhaustion—it was mental, more than physical. The physiological effects of cramming the Cipher into her mind had impacted her health and functionality—she could only hope that Saren was suffering too. Alenko had once said he did not wish migraines on anyone...she wished Saren _at least_ a migraine.

Alenko was nice, she wasn't. In a moment of vehemence, she expanded her former wish for the turian to be in pain: she wished Saren had a migraine the likes of which no human, turian, or any other sentient species had ever suffered.

For starters.

"So…how'd your end of the mission go?" she asked, forcing personal prejudices aside in favor of the immediate meeting as she settled across from Garrus in the briefing room.

"…it went well."

Shepard eyed the turian for a few long moments. "You all came back in one piece, no bites or bullet holes. Critique it." Then, when Garrus looked surprised, "Break it down for me. Nice and simple, my head hurts." Garrus had potential, just like Forbes. Like any individual, Garrus came with his own set of issues, strengths and shortcomings.

And she meant to put a little polish on the raw product, the stone in the rough. She might have changed her official position—commanding officer of an Alliance warship _and _Spectre—but it did not change her ideologies, motivations, or inclinations, and her inclinations were to pick those bright sparks in the ranks and push them towards excellence.

Garrus was on the right track…if he didn't fall off it by leaping before he looked. Sometimes getting off the right track resulted in a very nasty fall, and no guarantee of getting back _on _the right track.

She liked Garrus. He was headstrong, willful, impetuous, all the things that gave a person a passion for something, in his case fighting the good fight. His only really problematic shortcoming was a lack of practice in thinking ahead. He was an on-the-fly person, for the most part, he didn't think in contingencies and backups.

The problem was that he needed to discover shortcomings himself; he would dismiss anyone else pointing them out. So many people spend so much time telling how and why he was wrong that he was numb to it. She needed to circumvent this if he was to expand as a leader.

"Motivating Wrex was hard. He doesn't respond well to…" Garrus stopped, and Shepard read 'authority' in the sentence. Fortunately, Garrus remembered in time that, of course, Wrex would not see him as any kind of authority.

"What are you looking for, Shepard?" Garrus frowned, leaning on the table.

"I want to know what you got out of the mission." She pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes. In the back of her mind a tide of mental noise, the Cipher, rose until it almost drowned out Garrus' answer.

"…listen to Liara's bad feelings."

"What bad feelings?" She peered at the turian.

"Oh…when we got on the ground, she said she was having a bad feeling and I kind of…yeah…" He drummed his talons on the table, mandibles fluttering close to his jaw. "So…don't underestimate the kid?"

"Good place to start. How do you like being in charge?"

Garrus gave a wry laugh. "Glad it's you most days. I kept waiting for the team to fall apart…but we got that one civilian out…"

She had heard about this, though the name of the rescuee escaped her. "And in one piece."

"Yeah…the geth hit us while we were talking with him. He was pretty rough…so I had Wrex and myself up front, and Tali…" He shifted. "She had to hit him pretty hard—he'd have gotten himself killed if she hadn't. Didn't think she had it in her, but she put her shotgun butt right across his face…"

Garrus' tone became assessing, impersonal. It was what she wanted, him to logic and unravel the events on a personal level. He provided an after-action report because she believed in documentation. This critique would make him relive it, see what he could have done differently, find the things that _had_ worked, and name them so he would remember them later.

"Wrex carried the guy while Tali and I provided covering fire. We left the guy with Dr. Chakwas and Dr. T'Soni…then we went back in and cleaned out the geth. Wrex and I wanted to shoot the beacon, but Tali manually disabled it."

"Why?"

"…salvage. Thinking like a quarian, I…" he stopped. "This is a poor colony, it was a good idea."

Shepard nodded her approval.

"I'm starting to feel like a real dud here, Shepard."

"You'll feel less so with practice. Trust me, you're not a dud." That was part of the critique method: to pick out your own flaws and inadequacies. "What do you think was your major problem?"

Garrus considered for a long moment. "I…I wanted the mission to succeed, so I was trying to do everything myself, downplaying my squadmates."

He surprised her, coming to this conclusion so quickly. Or maybe he had been mildly aware of it for awhile.

"If I didn't think you could do it, I wouldn't have asked you to. I want you to keep thinking over the exercise. Write down the strengths and weaknesses in its execution, and make yourself notes about what else you could have done. It's important," she raised a forestalling hand, "it'll help you in the long run. It'll help you shape yourself as a leader. _I_ had to do it."

That stopped the argument. Both knew he was free to ignore the good advice, advice from experience, but both knew he had enough respect for her that he would try…just this once…and see what happened.

"Do I need to turn this in?" Garrus teased.

"I've got so much crap on my desk I'll just put it in a folder marked 'urgent' and shim my bookcase with it. Keep your critique."


	122. Hot Drinks

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

"I cannot believe you're still drinking that slop, Commander." Liara's voice interjected itself into Shepard's stream of thoughts.

Shepard sighed, looking away from her datapad and into her cold coffee. The asari had a point, but then, Liara had already made it quite clear that she didn't believe in coffee. "The navy has never been known for good coffee. Besides...it keeps me awake," she added in a low undertone. The knife sharp nightmares that had taken over her unconscious hours made sleep as undesirable as it was necessary.

"Yes, that is certainly true," the asari sat down across from Shepard. "But it's not good for you either. Are you still sleeping poorly?"

"If 'sleeping' is the word. Why?"

"Here." She scooted a steaming mug across the table towards Shepard, careful not to burn her fingers. Liara vanished for a moment behind her own mug. "I hope you won't think me presumptuous...but try it." She gave Shepard an encouraging (if somewhat self-conscious) smile.

Shepard sighed, opting to humor the asari. After all, the coffee really was terrible, and it was obvious the asari was putting herself out. Something about the offer of the beverage smacked of a peace gesture, or apology, though Shepard could not for the life of her figure out what the asari had to apologize _for. _

Unless it was the rough ride trying to translate the beacon's message through the filter of the Cipher...but she doubted Liara could have been any more careful.

Still, she did not like strange food or unfamiliar drinks. "What is it?" she asked, eyeing the semi-clear green infusion, before giving it a cautious sniff.

"It's tea." Liara answered, looking surprised by the question.

Ask a stupid question. Shepard sipped the hot liquid, wincing as it burned the roof of her mouth, and her tongue. It was not _bad—_not like the coffee—but she realized she could not say whether she actually liked it or not. Letting it cool a bit before sipping at it again, Shepard found it _did_ have a flavor, a very distinctive one that reminded her vaguely of something like incense. This thought barely flickered across her mind before Shepard realized the knots of tension in the old gray matter had begun to loosen up, uncoiling like stiff muscles in a hot shower. "Mmm."

"Do you like it?" Liara asked, watching Shepard's expression twist, as though in relief at the loosening of overly tense muscles.

"Yeah. It's better than the joe." She gave her mug a shove, and when the silence stretched, opened her eyes to find Liara blinking quizzically at her, the question 'Joe?' stamped across her blue features. "Joe—cup of joe. The coffee," Shepard explained, taking another sip of the tea.

"Ah, I see." Liara looked into her own coffee as Shepard closed her eyes again, the tension starting to seep out of her shoulders. Of course, Shepard would never have touched the stuff if she knew it would slow her mind down, and help her relax. However, overhearing Shepard's talk with Dr. Chakwas about sleep aides prompted the asari to volunteer the information to the Doctor. "I used this all through school, when my studies got to me."

"Yeah?" Shepard's head felt ready to droop right off her neck, but in a good way.

"Yes. It takes the edge off a stressed or racing mind." Liara shrugged and Shepard exhaled sharply through her nose.

She knew a few things about stressed or racing mind. "What's in this stuff…?" She asked, blinking at the tea in the mug. It was true, she felt a little hazy, but pleasantly so. If the effects were a little stronger, getting to sleep might not be such a hardship. The smell of incense continued coiling around her nose, and for some odd reason, she could almost feel the weight of Fitzpatrick the cat pressed against her ankles, the way he used to do when she started to stress badly.

Liara chose not to tell Shepard the actual ingredients. There was nothing _strange_ in the tea, but at the same time, none of the ingredients would mean anything to Shepard. She could say it was made of rainbows and stardust, and Shepard would know no better.

"It's not too bad..." Shepard allowed.

"I'm glad you think so." And, after a long pause.

Shepard smoothed her hair until her hands ran into her regulation bun. "Wow...this stuff is _strong_. Any stronger and you could use it as a sedative," she picked the cup up, sniffed the rich fragrance again, and downed the last of it.

"It can be—but I could never drink it that strong. My roommate did, though." Liara shook her head slowly.

"Where'd you go to school?"

Liara blinked then shrugged. "University of Serrice, back on Thessia. It's...a good school," she appended.

Shepard nodded, not knowing anything about the school either way, but taking an alumni's word for it. Now that some of the tension was out of her neck and shoulders, now that the anxiety resonating in her mind was dulled, her eyes began to feel heavy. This was good, seeing as to how she needed to finish out this sleep shift or risk being impaired by fatigue when she came on duty. That could be a problem in more ways than one. "Thanks, Liara."

Liara perked up, glad her attempt to assist had not backfired. "Not at all. May I suggest getting rid of the 'joe', from now on?"

Shepard gave a low chuckle. "Nice try…but if the army marches on its stomach, the navy runs on caffeine—and that means coffee. Out the ears." Shepard smiled as she picked up both mugs and setting them to rights. "I'm going to have to call it a day. Goodnight."

"That is a bit of a contradiction, Commander, but I take your meaning. Sleep well."

Shepard nodded—it _was_ a bit of a contradiction—before wandering back to her quarters, the smell of incense still lurking in her nostrils.


	123. Advertisement

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

To Spectre Requisitions Agent Livion Urvyle, C-Sec Academy, the Citadel,

Please find enclosed the requested Spectre Requisitions Feedback Forms (Form-SGR-2390) from Commander J. Shepard and support crew. Please also be aware, all suits of armor (belonging to Williams, A., and myself) will be returned to Requisitions upon our return to the Citadel. We should be there in a few days, once we wrap things up out here.

We will need replacements—I hope the human-sized stuff is in, because the entire ground team for that last mission is in dire need of fresh stuff. _Dire_ need. Have any of the manufactures sent anything that might fit a human male, yet?

All other equipment is still functioning and in excellent order, despite the exceedingly hostile, explosive, slime-flinging, and allergy-inducing nature of the last mission. On a similar note, all personnel are _also_ in excellent order despite the mission, thanks mostly to said gear, especially that which died gloriously in combat, leaving the soldier unscathed. Again, we would happily send our compliments on the armor (see appended forms), and those weapons which did so much, to the manufacturers.

Thank you for your support, and the fantastic equipment,

Commander J. Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

PS: By the way, what does it take for equipment to be labeled as unsafe to return to the manufacturers? Just wondering…you may need those stamps or bio-haz stickers or whatever it is that you use for some of this stuff. I'll tell you what I can when we get back.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Hanhe-Kedar Shadow Works

Recipient: J. Shepard

Item: Janissary (H-M), Spectre Grade

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments: This thing took a beating on the last mission, and would have taken more on future excursions if I hadn't got…stuff…all over it. Stuff that won't come off, despite every scrub method known to humankind. Apart from being a too roomy, (not being intended for someone my size), I didn't get as much concrete dust in my boots as I expected. Unfortunately I did catch some of the slimy stuff. However, the squishy, stringy, or particulate matter stayed pretty much outside the mesh.

And from a career soldier, dry feet without dust/grit/sand between your toes is as good as armor gets. I also need to know if I can get a HKSW license for my Alliance Requisitions officer. Who would I talk to about that, or do I have to go through the company itself? Let me know, if you could.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Hanhe-Kedar Shadow Works

Recipient: A. Williams

Item: (H-M), Spectre Grade

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments: Okay, even if this suit was made with a big-boobed asari in mind, I can now forgive the bad fit. It would be easier if my original mesh worked in conjunction with it, but no go, I tried. There's no chance of making the plates compatible with other manufacturers' mesh, is there? I doubt it, but I'm still wondering. Hoping.

Believe me, though, once slime starts flying, the fit doesn't even matter, and neither does the mesh (except that it keeps _most_ of the goo off my skin—and if it was corrosive goo, I wouldn't have complained about the fit _at all_). Also, there are no blisters or chafing around the seals, which is a relief. It means the world to me not to have to powder up like Shepard does—the only reason no one comments is because they either accept she knows what she's about, or they're too scared to cross her about 'powdering up'.

HKSW gets my endorsement, no problem.

PS: Don't tell Skipper I mentioned powdering up.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Hanhe-Kedar Shadow Works

Recipient: A. Williams

Item: Diamondback Assault Rifle

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments: I love my Diamondback. I can't say much else without rambling: _I love my Diamondback._ I didn't even know it _existed_ before I uprooted it at Spectre Requisitions. It must take really special circumstances to get one of these rifles; it feels like I'm cheating the system with this thing in my hands. The range is excellent, it switches from full- to semi-auto as easily as I can change my mind, with no fear of 'accidental' switching. That's a great thing in an assault rifle, especially when the fire's on. I didn't win the game, but I should have had extra points awarded for spatter points…

…but sharing spatter point stories is not why I'm writing this thing. You don't need to know the details. You don't _want_ to know the details. Trust me. I can't believe the stuff Hahne-Kedar comes out with. They've got great armor and even better weapons. Why isn't the Alliance going through HK? They might want to look into it.

-J-

Manufacturer: Armali Council

Recipient: Lt. Kaidan M. Alenko

Item: Prodigy (Biotic Amp)

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 4/5 (Testing complete)

Comments: The sticking wore off after a few more days, but it was uncomfortable while it lasted. I had to clean it, and my port twice addition to cleaning and sterilizing it before initial use before the problem cleared up in. I'm hoping it was just from being in storage, but Armali Council might want to double check that.

Other than that, it's a fantastic piece of equipment, with no noticeable head buildup at the connection site. That's a major complaint from biotics, the opposite of Spacer's Syndrome is the Biotic Drawback: when your implant port starts overheating, you just feel hot all over, and a lot of amps do generate heat while biotics are in use. And when you're a soldier, and biotics are your primary weapon, the heat gets distracting.

The Prodigy has my vote—in a perfect world, this would be standard issue within the Alliance. I hope it has a long usage duration. Even if it doesn't I would sink private funds into getting a new one when this one gives out. It's that good.


	124. Gross

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

Shepard, Williams, and Alenko trooped down the steps into the C-Sec requisitions office. Livion, the turian requisitions officer, still sat behind his desk, keeping track of who knew what—or maybe he was just playing solitaire. Looking away from the screen, frowned as the Spectre and her Chief flung heavy duty black bags onto the floor, against the wall, like people taking out the garbage. "Is there a problem, Commander?" Livion asked as Shepard massaged her shoulder.

The armor was anything but _light_. Thank goodness she did not wear a hardsuit like Williams. Even carrying the armor left her feeling contaminated. Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose as the noise of the Cipher rose and fell in the back of her mind. "Depends on how you define 'problem'…" Shepard began with one of those lopsided grins so characteristic of her.

Livion got up, eyeing the bags askance as they lay in sullen-looking piles.

Alenko would have willingly levitated both bags, heavy as they were, but Shepard refused on the grounds that it would look too weird wandering around C-Sec Academy with luggage floating after them. Personally, he would have voted to label the stuff biohazard and throw it into the nearest furnace.

What would the armor companies want with these beyond-saving husks?

Williams wiped her hands on her trousers. Just _touching_ the bag was gross. She knew where all that armor had been, and it was not a nice place. Nor was it inhabited by nice things. Williams did not want to be in a place filled with fuzzy nose-wiggling bunnies and little peeping golden chicks, but a place _without_ space- or veggie-zombies would be nice.

Before Eden Prime and being stationed on the _Normandy_ she had not known how many varieties of space zombie shuffled about.

"Well, let's hear your definition," Livion could not help noticing how the marines did not want to touch the black bags—which made him sure _he_ did not want to touch it.

"It took a real beating on the last mission. There doesn't happen to be anything human-sized back there yet…is there?" Shepard and Williams exchanged looks. Made to fit an asari armor was not comfortable for them or practical for Alenko.

"Yes, we got a shipment in a couple weeks ago…what's wrong with this stuff? I'm assuming it's your armor." Livion eyed the three humans exchanging guilty looks.

_Spectres_.

"Well…it's…" Shepard began.

"It got _gross_," Williams finished when Shepard paused to consider what, exactly, she wanted to say.

Alenko could not stop snorting at this, nor could Shepard.

Livion narrowed his eyes, sure the Chief was having fun at his expense, though he addressed Shepard. She was responsible for her crew, after all. "Commander, I'm a patient turian, but if you don't come to the point a little more quickly…I'll cut your pipeline for gear."

This effectively wiped the smile off Shepard's face. "It's our armor."

"And it got _gross_?" He shot a doubtful glance at Williams. "Commander, these suits are rated for an incredible amount of…"

"They're not rated for _zombies _or weird plant slime." Shepard sighed. "Open it up, take a whiff." It would be easier to convince him this way.

Livion sensed they were now in earnest…but it still sounded like a galactic joke. He was so glad he was an office man most days. Thinking about zombies and weird slimy sludge reminded him why.

"You're best off not opening it; just drop it in the nearest furnace. We scrubbed and scrubbed_, nothing_ got the smell out." Alenko shuddered; the dried Thorian creeper goo had peeled and flaked out of hidden nooks and crannies like perverse dandruff.

Livion walked over, hauled one of the bags away from the wall, opened it and…

…gagged. It smelled like…like…he couldn't even _identify_ what it smelled like! "What the…what'd you do, Commander? Drag it through toxic sludge?"

"Can you imagine getting that stuff out of your _hair_?" Shepard asked lightly.

Livion sealed the bag again, still struggling _not_ to smell the cloud of reek hanging about his head. "Wow…what'd you…"  
"Mind controlling plant, lots of squishy zombies," Shepard gave him a sarcastic thumbs up, which Livion did not notice. He moved back to his desk still unable to believe the smell—much less what it might be when _fresh_. He was profoundly glad he drove a desk.

"I think your Lieutenant is right. I'll have it marked for biohazard…or sent back to the companies' home offices."

"I think you should just burn it," Williams grunted, "that stuff is just _gross_."

"I don't want to think about it," Livion answered with dignity. "Just give me one moment…"

Livion vanished quickly, leaving the marines to wait.

"Ten to one, he's puking his guts up." Williams assessed, crossing her arms.

"_I_ sure wanted to." Shepard shook her head. "'Gross' pretty much sums it up."

Alenko, who had remained quiet during this exchange, found the more they _talked _about the smell, the more vividly he remembered it.

Shepard noticed, and jogged Williams elbow with her own, nodding covertly at Alenko.

Williams caught on, nodded, and sighed.

Within moments a more-collected Livion reappeared. He had not, as Williams suggested, puked up his guts, but a few glasses of cold water helped restore his innards' usual calm. "Where were we?" he asked, glancing at the bags and shuddering. No, he did not need to start feeling queasy again…how did the humans _stand_ it?

"Gross armor," Alenko answered when Shepard and Williams made faces, plainly indicating that they were suspending jokes about the armor's condition. Normally he would have joined in the humor, but he was standing closest to the bags, and got a better whiff of the contents than they had.

That took the edge off anyone's sense of humor.

"Step on in: the human-spec gear is set aside for you." Livion let them into the back room. He took one last glance at the black bags huddled like bad news on his office floor. "That's just _gross_…"


	125. Sport

There are two references to Cause and Effect in here: One is to 'Sport (26)' and the other is to 'Heaven (98)'.

Beta-read by Saberlin

-J-

It took Alenko a supreme act of will to look at Shepard's face. No Alliance fatigues here, or body armor which was not as alluring as some people seemed to think. Civilians tended to think armor gave a great view of a female marine's curves, maximizing assets. To another marine, however, it was the hard shell keeping a friend safe, and therefore not an attractive thing to have to wear. Sure, every now and again errant thoughts fluttered, and there was teasing between mixed-company rookies, but experienced marines only cared that armor plates were in place, and holding up.

Not the case right now.

Shepard, dressed in her PT clothes, had a sport bag over one shoulder and a pistol on her hip. She looked almost like a civilian, except for the Alliance blue, standard-issue cut of her clothes, and that her hair was still in the regulation bun at the base of her skull.

Perhaps she _didn't_ look like a civilian; he'd simply never seen her dressed for PT.

Shepard had not expected to run into anyone, with most of the crew gallivanting around. Appearing out of armor out of her BDUs had always left her vaguely uncomfortable. As such, she resisted the urge to twist and tug at the hem of her top.

"Going out?" Alenko asked, trying not to catalog the differences between Shepard dressed for work and Shepard dressed for ...play. Instead of being tough, stern-faced and intense, she looked...softer, if that was the word, and it took a little effort to leave it at that and not watch the way the soft cotton clothes clung to her.

"Racquetball."

For a moment Alenko had a sense almost of déjà vu. What was it about Shepard and racquetball? "With a pistol? What kind of racquetball are you _playing_?"

"What kind indeed?" Shepard agreed. There it was, one of those glittering moments where Alenko showed his sense of humor without trying to quash it immediately afterward. "Well, I don't exactly look like someone to be taken seriously, do I?"

"You look nice though…" He could have slapped himself.

"Thanks," Shepard looked away, inwardly surprised at the compliment, but also oddly pleased. "You…don't play, do you?"

"Yeah…but not _well_…" Alenko shrugged. He wasn't sure he remembered half of the rules.

Shepard dug one sneaker into the deck, feeling like a geeking teenager all over again. "Me neither. Learned from a friend, but never got good at it." O'Conner had needed a sport buddy, and Shepard, of course, got pegged. Not that she minded, she enjoyed racquetball. "Would you…like to go for a couple rounds?"

Alenko found it a lot easier to keep his eyes on Shepard's face. One, she wasn't looking at him and two, she looked as though she was surprised at having asked. So, he brightened, he was not the _only_ one putting a hoof in his mouth. "I'm not good…"

Shepard shrugged, refusing the opportunity to rescind her offer. "Neither am I, but I take no prisoners."

Which Alenko took to mean he should give it his best shot whether he played well or not. He could do that. She'd probably win, but he could, make her work for it. The challenge made him perk up noticeably.

As for taking no prisoners, he saw something like that nearly every day.

-J-

Walking ashore—with Alenko wearing his regulation Alliance PT clothes and, in compliance with Shepard's general policy, his pistol—was full of awkward silence, leaving Shepard watching the front of the elevator, and Alenko watching Shepard.

She had to admit (knowing this was an observation had no business making), she liked Alenko in gym clothes.

"So where is this place?" Alenko asked, finally unable to bear the annoying elevator music. He was sure he'd heard the song somewhere else before, or at least, a couple bars of it, but couldn't place it.

"Near the embassies. High end place. Officers, politicians, and guests."

-J-

Shepard was not lying about being a fairly poor player. Alenko had not exaggerated when he warned her that he didn't remember all the rules. However, the various handicaps—and a generally fragmented version of the official rules of the game—put them on a similar level of play. Which meant the volleys that got going and kept going were sometimes intense.

Neither was really interested in taking prisoners. Sports were competitions, and both had a competitive streak of their own.

Which was why Shepard was panting so hard, hands on her knees. Alenko took her at her word, and was making her _work_. This was far more fun than plinking around on her own as she usually did when she had time to play.

The fierce vein of competitiveness underlying the friendly match certainly helped get her current irritation worked out. Every time she smacked the ball, or returned it with a vicious swipe, she could see Udina's face on it, rendered in shades of racquetball blue. Whacking the ball without the tiniest shred of mercy went a long way to restoring her calm.

It would make the inevitable dealing-with of Udina marginally bearable.

Shepard stretched, trying not to reveal the discomfort caused by the stitch forming in her side. "Are you ready to give up?"

"Now why would I want to do that?"

Shepard gave her racquet an experimental swing. Alenko had the nastiest habit—or perhaps an inborn gift—of hitting the ball so it hugged the wall, making it hard to save.

She had no idea how much he was coming to fear her slice. When it connected, it _connected_. It was better to just let the ball whizz around and call it a lost cause.

Neither noticed that much of the traditional observance of protocol dropped during the game. The air was charged with unspoken challenges, a combination of 'I'm going to _win_ this' and 'prove it', radiating from both sides.

Of all the sides of Alenko Shepard had seen thus far, this was by far the most intriguing.


	126. Confidences

A small announcement.

For the record: the very awesome Nepht found my 'missing' reference to O'Conner and her beau. It can be found in Chapter 30 of C&E.

Beta-read by the awesome Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sighed, frowning dubiously into a vid-recorder.

_O'Conner. I think I've finally gone crazy: I'm writing to you. _

_I'm in temporary housing. The Citadel actually put Normandy's crew up. We're refueling, re-supplying, and the Alliance pinged out a batch of engineers to check the _Normandy's _status. The techs don't want the crew underfoot while they work, because we haven't been…well, very gentle with her. _

_So, here we are, off-ship and taking a few days to breathe. Breathe clean (if recycled) air, I might add. _

_That's not why I'm writing. I know you're dead. You're _definitely _dead, and I can't actually send this _anywhere_. However, I also have the niggling suspicion that you're sitting somewhere in the Great Hereafter tuned into my life like it was some kind of soap opera. Don't waste popcorn throwing it at the screen when I do something 'dumb'—it won't help._

_Speaking of 'help', my current predicament is…_

All. Your. Fault_. _

_I know you're laughing at me. You never tried to set me up on a blind date while you were alive, but I _know _you had a hand in _this_. I don't know how, but in case you're giving me that innocent 'who me?' look: what's with Mr. Three-Out-of-Three?_

_Is it that you _knew _I'd never settle for Two-Out-of-Three, because 'refusing to settle for second-best' was an excuse for me to avoid emotional complications? _

_You know what happens to people when they get close to me: look at you! I can't even _send _this to you..._

_This is such a bad idea; if I had any guts whatsoever, I'd do something about it...one way or another. _

_I've tried to establish a safer distance, but every time I open my mouth to do it…the wrong things come out. When I want distance, I flirt, if I were to try to flirt I'd choke on the words. _

_I should turn in my commission: this is officially reckless endangerment._

_I know you know what I mean: people get hurt around me, and I'd rather be alone for the rest of my life than let anything happen to any of my new…friends. It's a particularly cold stab of fear when I think about precedents applied to _this _particular individual. _

_I don't mind when we're in normal combat, or in action—that's business. But…unexpected things do seem to happen around me: you took shrapnel to the face because we went back for that one guy. He shouldn't have been wandering around like that; I'm still not clear on how he got separated from his unit. I don't _blame _him, I know you wouldn't want me to…but it's on days like today where I really wish you were here. _

_At which point you would tell me not to change the subject. So I won't. _

_It's happened so quietly, this…growing relationship. I didn't really realize what I was looking at until it hit me one day that what started as good camaraderie had…changed. _

_You'd approve of him, I think. At the very least, you'd cheer because he sees right straight through me: past the uniform, the ribbons and little medals, past the brass on my collar, and the…the _legend _of Commander Shepard. _

_I promised myself that I would live a life empty but for service. I've done it for so long that I don't know what to do now that there's this threat against that philosophy._

_I know what you'd tell me right now: that I can't throw away everything just to be safe. Well, I've managed so far. You'll note the past tense. _

_I'm beginning to feel a bit of what you felt when you found out your pick was an O. It's awful to be caught between duty and someone you…want near you. _

_What's _really _unnerving is that I think he reciprocates…in some measure. To be honest, I try not to speculate: I don't like where the 'yes, he does' or 'no, he doesn't' lines of thought take me. _

…_it's strange: I only angst and worry like this when life finally slows down, and I'm alone. Alone…I already know what you'd say about that. He and I actually went and played racquetball the other day; I _enjoyed _it. It wasn't just 'fun', I _enjoyed _the outing. _

_And think about what this could do to _both _our careers! By my own choices my career is all I really have that's _mine_. I've used it to define myself for so long, I'm not sure who I'd be without it._

_Right now, you'd change the subject with 'so, Shepard, what _is _the appeal exactly?' and tell me to quit worrying so much. _

_He makes me feel…safe. There's no question of whether he's got my back, in a fight or out of it…it's a sense that I can rely on him to have my back when the bullets _aren't _flying._

_Remember how you used to tell me 'Shepard, if I didn't hassle you about getting out and having _fun_, you wouldn't be _living_, you'd just _exist_. And that's _boring_, so let's go!'? I think I understand the difference between 'living' and 'existing' now._

_Not too long ago, I had one of my crewmen critique himself, so he'd see the spots that needed work, recognize them, and admit their presence so he wouldn't write it off as someone nitpicking his methodology. I find myself in the same predicament: now I've admitted that there's a possibility of…something…I can't pretend it's not there anymore. _

_Quit cheering. I said 'possibility'. _

Shepard sighed, glanced at the clock. She was supposed to meet Alenko and Williams at Flux in a little while; if she wanted to be on time she would have to leave soon. Shaking her head, she off the vid-recorder, regarded it for a long moment, and then deleted the message. Well, at least one thing was resolved: she couldn't play ostrich to the fact that _something_ outside professionalism was beginning to form.

The knowledge did not give her any insight on what to do about it.


	127. Down Time

I'M NOT DEAD! Now that we've got that established: sorry this has taken so long, I've been absolutely snowed under by Finals Week.

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard and Alenko sat at a table at Flux, back to the wall in a comfortable corner. Williams, to Shepard's surprise, had opted not to accompany the officers. Alenko, when he turned up by himself on Shepard's doorstep, cited that she wanted to write home before her family 'seriously freaked'.

Shepard had not expected to find herself out and about with Alenko without Williams' buffering presence. If she had any doubts before now that O'Conner was laughing at her, they were now gone.

Admittance was acceptance, acceptance meant dealing with the accepted issue.

Alenko slouched in his seat, pretending to watch the water slip off the beer he was not really drinking. Shepard had, he noticed, taken to hitting the Astro Fizz fairly hard since they settled down almost half an hour ago. She had three empty bottles on the table, one in her hand, and looked ready to order more. "You know, that stuff'll give you brain cancer."

Shepard snorted. So said the biotic—but she did not tease him on this count. She liked his up-front, earnest opinions, despite the fact Alenko tended to advise or present opinions from a very logical standpoint. With a deep breath and a sigh, she forced herself to _think _about what she said, to make the words intentional. "I'm already headed for brain cancer…or an aneurism."

"Aneurisms don't come from Astro Fizz, Shepard." By now, though he would never admit it, Alenko did not mind so much when he spoke before running through everything he said with a fine-toothed comb.

"No, but I'm stressed. You're stressed. Captain Anderson is stressed and the only person involved in this mess who isn't…"

"Is a smug turian,"Alenko finished, using Williams' epithet with a rueful grin. "You and Williams put his mug shot in paper targets yet?"

Shepard smiled sweetly, finding herself relaxing as conversation began to progress. "Now, I would _never _do a thing like that."

"Uh-huh." He did not believe this for a moment, nor did Shepard mean him to. Alenko leaned on one elbow and began fiddling with his omni-tool—but not really doing anything with it.

Shepard leaned on the table as well, eyeing Flux. Everything here seemed normal, mundane even. There was not so much as a twitter of worry about things on a galactic scale. It was sad, but oddly comforting that people could be stupid without worrying about invading geth or insane turians. Sipping her soda, she glanced sidelong at Alenko's beer.

It smelled horrible, but she knew it set her apart that she never indulged.

"So…when'd you quit?" Alenko asked blandly, noticing the contemplative look cast at the dark bottle.

"Never started." Shepard debating calling for a fifth soda—one more bottle and she could stack them, very carefully, into a pyramid.

"Teetotaler?"

"Nope." She did not intend to admit the real reason, even to Alenko. It was dangerous; the idea of being poisoned by a shot of...wait. Alenko? Try to get her drunk? On purpose?

She was getting downright _paranoid_. Taking a long drag of her soda; if she was getting paranoid about her teammates... Paranoia was a good way to put distance between two people...but it also hurt the team dynamic, and she couldn't have that. She didn't _want_ that.

"Setting a good example for the Es?" The tone of dismissive sounding-out broke Shepard from her over-analysis.

"What are you beating around the bush about?"

Alenko did not miss that the smile did not reach her eyes. That was another puzzle: Shepard sometimes seemed to...freeze up, and it only happened during downtime. It happened now: it was like watching a cat stop to listen, but subtle. He was a medic: he noticed things, and knew an involuntary response when he saw one.

He forced himself to abandon that line of thought. If it _was_ an involuntary response, it was probably a learned response; he could speculate where the response had its roots. _That _meant it was none of his business.

…why was Shepard so addicted to Astro Fizz? Maybe it was just a caffeine addiction, or maybe it all came down to a bad booze experience.

"Shepard?" He asked earnestly, not sure if he meant to tease this time. He dropped his voice, inclining his head, speaking with careful deliberation. "Would you like a sip of my beer?"

It was the last thing Shepard expected him to say, and she was not sure how to respond. "I dunno…"

Alenko gently nudged the bottle towards her. "I promise: no cooties."

"Alenko, I've been shot at, thrown around, kicked, beaten, bruised, mind-probed, spattered with zombie goo, been shouted at, snubbed, and threatened with both Alliance- and Spectre-grade psychological analyses." She exhaled sharply. "_Believe me_, I'm not afraid of _your_ 'cooties'." Who used 'cooties' anymore?

"Of course not," he managed to remain straight-faced.

Shepard picked up the bottle, twirling it around and watching the liquid within, then glanced over, making eye contact. She swallowed hard, despite the instinct to make one of those frantic pushes for distance—which would have meant an early departure.

Running away, she thought grimly. He was close to her, and she did not want to lose his companionship. To keep teetering like this would be as bad as stringing him along out of sheer boredom, and she couldn't do that. Wouldn't. "I can't." She shifted to whisper softly, half shocked at her decision to make a statement of irrevocable trust. "I…it's genetic. _That_ would probably kill me."

Alenko watched her set the beer in front of him, processing this new insight. It went counter to every expectation he had. It contrasted so sharply from the sudden flinch he had expected to see. What was more, the information was sensitive; it made her vulnerable.

She went very still, as though waiting for the headman's axe to fall.

Alenko plucked her empty Astro Fizz bottle from her hand, shaking it to get the waitress' attention. "I'll get this one."

Something constricted in Shepard's chest suddenly loosened.

-J-

**Just to save confusion: Cause and Effect states that Shepard has bad reactions to alcohol—my wording is that she's 'allergic'. Deathly so. I accept that there's no such allergy in reality, but this is a sci-fi piece, and people of her galaxy/time do a lot of weird stuff to genetics. You never know where weird flukes might come from if parents/grandparents had work done. ^_^


	128. Butterfly

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Up until that moment Alenko thought, as most people did, that some things happened _only_ in the vids, utilized by cinematographers to capture the moments of shock and jaw-dropping surprise. The problem was, in the vids you knew beforehand that something like that would happen. You saw the transport terminal, saw the vid's protagonist and then _boom_—a blast from the past.

Good stuff for vids, but _not_ for real life.

Alenko's movie moment hit while entering into the C-Sec Academy hub, heading out for a foray into the wards with Shepard. The early hour found the usual hustle and bustle of activity fairly laid back—it was only six or so. Such early hours usually found new arrivals taking advantage of the relative slowing of space traffic.

This was the only reason Alenko noticed anything odd as he scanned the crowd, keeping a weather eye out for trouble.

He did not find trouble: he found Rahna.

Standing just outside the lift which let out onto the Presidium, dressed in vibrant rose pink, she surveyed her surroundings with the elegant poise he remembered so clearly. He would recognize her profile anywhere. She was chatting amiably to the gentleman with whom she stood—it would not surprise Alenko to find out she was married, that this was not a bodyguard or other familial escort.

-J-

Rahna turned to sweep her gaze over the crowd, rather enjoying her first time on the Citadel. Her smile froze, then faded like sunlight vanishing behind a cloud. The two marines stood out from the hustle of C-Sec officers and civilians, but the foremost doubly so.

Kaidan Alenko.

She never expected to see him again, ever again. At first it was too much after Jump Zero, she could not deal with the events, and had distanced herself from him—brutally, she realized in later years.

Deep down, she knew it was not a question of how such a nice boy could do something so horrible. She understood his reasons and part of her cringed, wondering what the turian's death had done to Kaidan. It was a of what horrible things _she_ was capable of…if she ever lost control? Or panicked, just _reacted_, as he had?

What might she have to carry on her conscience?

Selfish? Perhaps, but a very real fear to a teenage girl.

During the moment their eyes met she saw, not the heartbreak of all those years ago, but a sort of wistful melancholia, as if they had simply drifted away due to distance or somehow losing one another's addresses.

-J-

She'd aged gracefully. She looked barely twenty-five and just as fragile, just as delicate as she had all those years ago. As he examined Rahna he saw…regret, sadness, and echoes of unhappy things.

He knew he would, but unlike years before there was no gulf of horror and disgust. There was only a gap of too many years, of experiences too different. He'd always wondered what a chance meeting might be like. Now he found there was nothing to say.

Confronted with her again, he realized his memory of her had taken on idealistic tones. The actual memories had faded, like old photographs did. She was still beautiful, probably still clever, still charming, still had that pretty smile…but she did not belong in his world anymore.

Like a butterfly, fluttering here or there, but only for a season, or until the crush of change overcame it.

"Hey, Alenko? Anyone home?" Shepard tapped his arm with the back of her hand to pull his attention back.

She wore a look of concern which he interpreted as 'there's Alenko spacing out again'. Yet the casually assessing glance she shot in Rahna's direction made him certain Shepard knew exactly who had his attention and why. He'd mentioned Rahna to her before, and remembered comparing the two.

Now that he had them in the same place he discovered the problem with this comparison.

Comparing the real-life individuals to one another, Shepard was the more _real_, the more vivid. They had similar qualities, but at the same time those qualities were expressed so differently he wondered why the differences occurred to him only _now_. They were both charming, but Rahna's was a delicate sort of charm, whereas Shepard's was firmly rooted in that vibrant personality. Both were beautiful, but it was the difference between an untouchable marble statue in a museum, and the familiarity in the sleek design of his mother's stone jaguar statuette.

When drawing that particular comparison, his paradigm shifted. He had always thought, deep down in the very bottom of his heart, that if there ever came a way to fix things with Rahna, he would take the chance in a heartbeat.

Now though…it didn't matter anymore. She simply didn't belong in his world; it really _was_ that simple.

"Sorry, Commander. Just spacing out." He gave Shepard a real, genuine smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the sincerity of it.

He had no way of knowing how much Shepard liked that unrestrained smile. It conjured up a reflexive grin from her, one with far fewer reservations than her smiles usually carried. "Then we'd better get you breakfast before we get to work." Her tone smacked of 'can't have you spacing out on duty' and the warm camaraderie they shared when worry over friendship becoming a compromising thing was successfully shoved aside.

"Sounds good."

"Let's hit the road, then." She shook her head, plainly amused, before turning to wait for an early-morning gaggle of civilians to stampede past.

Alenko took one last look at Rahna, who seemed rooted to the spot, unable to speak or look away, despite the fact her escort was peering at the crowd, trying to see what held her so fixated. When the escort looked away to check the lift, Alenko gave Rahna a faint smile, and waved at her, before moving to catch up with Shepard.

_Goodbye, butterfly_.

The words encompassed one of the most healing moments of his life.


	129. Rose

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Rahna sent for him. Alenko had not been sure how to respond to this, or how to take it. But there it was, plain as day, a written request for his company. He could not catalog how it felt to see the polite missive, requesting a few moments of his time.

He was still a little unsettled by Shepard's statement when he asked if she needed him to stick around. True, the crew was on liberty, but he and Williams tended to hang around in case she needed backup. '_Breakfast didn't hit the spot, huh? Go on—get out of here_', the tacit acknowledgment of what he was actually planning to do was stamped in every word.

And yet, he still felt as though he was simply going down to the Emporium for something mundane, not going to see an old sweetheart. Shepard had enough to go on to surmise what this was about: she had asked a very delicately-worded question during breakfast, which he had answered without thinking.

The simple fact that she treated the excursion as if he was heading out for snack cakes came as a relief. Joker would gleefully beast him about old girlfriends. Williams would have teased him enough to get him ruffled. Wrex…one never knew what might come out of the krogan's mouth.

How Shepard react if he ever threw the krogan across the cargo bay? The idea was not without its merits...

The mental image of Wrex sailing across the garage kept him from feeling like a nervous teenager, gangling and ungainly during the walk to the embassy lounge.

-J-

Rahna sat demurely in a corner of the diplomat's lounge at the embassy, fiddling with her napkin and ignoring her drink. It was foolish, very foolish. And yet, the longer she fought asking to see him the more it clawed at her, taunted her until she could no longer bear it.

He brought back memories, most of them unpleasant, most of them having little to do with him. But he brought them back, all the same, things that still occasionally haunted her nightmares. Loud shouts, breaking bones, searing pain, throbbing pain, a mass effect field strong enough to make her teeth rattle in her mouth, Kaidan, Vyrnus…the turian's head snapping back…

She could almost hear the water glass hit the floor, see the water spill before creeping along the white floor, all of it in slow motion...

"Rahna." Alenko paused at her table, hailing her, as she did not give the impression of paying attention to anyone or anything around her.

She jumped, her large brown eyes, rimmed with more eye pencil than was flattering up close, flicking up to him. At a distance, her makeup hid about five years, but not up close. She was still lovely, though.

"Kaidan…" Rahna blinked several times, and then forced a smile, waving to the other seat. "I was surprised to see you here."

"Same here." Alenko sat down, tucking his box beneath his chair. He moved with a self-assuredness that was good to see. "I wasn't expecting you to ask for me."

The shy, almost awkward quality he possessed when speaking with her was gone, without a trace. The aura he gave off might make an outsider think they had simply fallen out of contact after their last year of summer camp.

"I didn't intend to…but…" This was a bad idea. She should have listened to her instincts. "Would you like a drink?"

"No, thank you, I'm good."

Awkward tension dripped onto the table, pouring onto the floor. Rather, it was awkward for Rahna. It was as if their positions of all those years ago had reversed, leaving her the one somewhat ill at ease. "So…what brings you to the Citadel?"

"My CO. She operates out of the Citadel." Best to keep those details to himself. "You?"

"My husband's business." Rahna was glad to find no hurt, shock, or even surprise. She had half expected this meeting to go very badly, rather than just uncomfortably. "I…" she swallowed, her throat dry. "I didn't think it was really you."

-J-

Life had erased most of the shadows he remembered lurking in her eyes. If this was any indication, the intervening years had been good to her. He was glad for her. "You haven't aged a day." A little gallant, perhaps, but it made Rahna smile.

"You always were so charming." Rahna's smile faded. "Kaidan…" she stopped, unable to say what was on her tongue. It was such a long time ago. Plainly they had both done some serious moving on.

Alenko saw it in her face, the apology she could not voice. At one time in his life, it would have meant everything. Now, it did not seem so important. He had learned to live with himself, live with the aftermath of Jump Zero. He had dealt with it, and could honestly say that he was happy.

There were a lot of slugs and zombies involved, along with aliens on the crew, a CO who did not know the meaning of the word 'quit', and dangerous things everywhere he turned…but he was happy.

"It's good to see you're doing well…" His watch beeped. He had set it, originally, as an excuse to leave if things went badly. Or, if things went extremely well, something he could wave off as unimportant.

Now it was his excuse to let Rahna off the hook, since she seemed so uncomfortable, with her sweating drink and shredded napkin. It was almost painful to watch. "I need to go, you know, stuff never lets up." He carefully placed his box on the table. "Goodbye, Rahna."

-J-

Rahna watched Kaidan go, a sense of relief and sadness settling over her. She should not have arranged the meeting. She should have left well enough alone. And yet there was no niggling sense of 'you should have...'. Her drink remained untouched, her napkin remained shredded…

…but the rose, white as innocence in its long box, went with her.


	130. Scrounger

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Credit where it's due, this was inspired by a friend: you know who you are.

Timeframe: this takes place a couple days after 'Rose'.

-J-

Craig Carter, the requisitions officer, raised his eyes as he sat at his small workstation in the cargo bay to find Garrus towering over him. It was like being a rabbit with a hawk circling somewhere overhead. "Yes, Garrus?" The nerves did not show in his tone, but he began to drum his fingers.

"I'm submitting a request for an ammo block." The turian held out the necessary form.

Come to think of it, Garrus _had_ collected a requisitions form, but that was _weeks_ ago. Craig inwardly shook his head: the turian gave the impression that he was the sort of bachelor who let his nest—_apartment_—fall slowly into chaos and then wondered how it happened.

"Ammo blocks? No offense intended, Garrus, but this ship is carrying enough blocks to start _and_ finish a couple wars." It was a point of pride, as was making sure he had the necessary replacement plates for the armor suits that used them, and emergency suits for those who used the hardsuits. Those were tricky to get, particularly the nonhuman models, but he managed.

"No offense intended…" Garrus paused, mandibles pulling close to his chin.

"Craig," the officer supplied.

"No offense intended, Craig, but your standard-issue Alliance shit is tearing up my rifle." When Craig lifted his eyebrows—being under the impression all ammo was alike, unless it burned or froze—Garrus huffed and leaned on the desk.

It took effort for Craig not to push his chair back to get away from the plated features and beady eyes.

"Look, special rifle, special ammo. Please. I filled out the form."

Everyone knew Garrus hated paperwork.

Craig took the offered form, scanning it. It listed a manufacturer whose name he couldn't pronounce; it was probably a turian manufacturer, which made it…difficult. "Why change blocks now, all of a sudden?"

Garrus exhaled, his breath whistling gently through his sharp teeth. "Because I started _using_ the standard issue crap 'just now'. I like my own ammo in my own weapon."

As good an answer as any; a sniper rifle didn't eat as much as some of the other weapons on this ship. Wrex didn't go out half as often as some of the others, but he certainly changed blocks more often than most.

Forget Wrex: this was about Garrus' turian manufacturer. He could handle difficult, and he didn't get to scrounge up rare or unusual items very often. The only problem was whether he, as a human in the Alliance, could _get _it. He'd prefer to avoid intermediaries…that looked suspicious if anyone ever questioned it. "You know, _technically_ I don't have a license for any of this," he waved the datapad.

"I know," Garrus purred, "but you're the best—or you wouldn't be here." Garrus stopped leaning on the deck, cocking his head to see if the compliment had worked.

Craig barely managed to input the first three entries from the datapad into the computer before he put his hands flat on the desk. "Garrus, I'm not going to do this with you looming over me like a predator looking at its next meal."

Garrus shifted, glanced around, and leaned in again. "I don't _loom_."

"You're looming—I'll let you know if I can get it." He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating Garrus should get lost.

Garrus opened his mouth, probably in hopes that if he stood here it might help somehow, or speed up of the process. He seemed to think better of it, he closed his mouth, sighed, and strode off.

Craig returned his attention to inputting the data. They were still attached to the Citadel, with Shepard swearing up and down that they would pull out the next day. The information network aboard the Normandy indicated that the Ambassador was planning (and finally contrived to find a way) to parade Shepard around like a show dog—first human Spectre that she was—and had contrived to wrangle Shepard into compliance.

He had to invite the entire cadre of officers and Anderson had probably put in a couple of reluctantly strategic words to maneuver the Commander into compliance.

...wait _a_ _minute_…

Craig picked up the datapad. The ammunition blocks Garrus wanted were of turian manufacture, but the weapon wasn't. He thought for a moment of calling Garrus back to ask about this discrepancy, but thought better of it. If Garrus was irritated about standard-issue Alliance ammo tearing up his precious sniper rifle, he wouldn't request an ammunition block he wasn't sure of.

Competition shooters got that way, Craig recalled. No, Garrus knew what he was doing.

"Craig," Shepard came striding over, creases between her brows and around her eyes, "I need to put in an order for…" she drew out the last word, frowning at the stack of four datapads in her hand.

"Don't worry about it, Commander, I've got it. How's that thing tonight coming together?" He asked innocently.

She gave him a piercing look to let him know the subtle question had not tripped her into answering without thinking. "Still on, I don't even want to talk about it."

"Fair enough…Wrex is out _again_?" Craig demanded.

"I know. I swear he _eats_ that stuff. It's not hu—kroganly possible to go through that much!"

"You don't think he's stockpiling? You know, banking against the day when free stuff runs out, do you?"

Shepard cast a sidelong glance at Wrex. "You know…that would explain why he went through me, this time."

"No, actually." Craig shifted in his chair. "I, ah, got a little miffed with him last time and told him that stuff for the Alliance was my job, stuff for folks I liked was done as a personal favor, stuff for people I don't like is a favor to you…and that I didn't like him enough to do it without having it approved in writing."

"So…technically he owes me a favor?" Shepard's face lit up.

"You…could say that." He would love to see Wrex's face when Shepard pulled this out.


	131. Clean Up Well

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Alenko hung back after most of the other officers left. His first excuse was that 'hanging around was force of habit'. The reality was that he suspected Shepard's grip on political aspects meant she would not be wearing mess dress. She, as a Spectre, couldn't afford to make the political statement that she was still Alliance through and through, whatever the truth might be.

It was partly curiosity about the contents of the box she brought back to the ship.

The second excuse ran thus: the regulation-prescribed Alliance blue uniform of an officer was familiar and safe. No one liked being stripped of their shell of security, which was why he expected that removing her longstanding shell of security might affect her confidence.

Not her outward behavior, just the underlying confidence.

Shepard strode out from around the partition housing the elevator, then gave an 'I thought so' kind of smile as she spotted him. However, he caught some of the rigidity of her posture relax, a minute softening of spine and shoulders.

Alenko wished he could snap a holo. Unfortunately, this was not an option, and he greatly regretted it. He doubted Shepard would ever let herself be wrangled into a position like this again.

"How do I look?" The question made him realize he _was_ staring. Shepard turned once in a circle, letting him see her from all angles. That was odd behavior from her. Yes, he made up the excuse of internal confidence suffering from lack of familiarity, but this was a bit much...

...she was, he realized, having him look for the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon. She was probably banking on close attention. If he couldn't spot it, no one else would.

Well, if it was license to look and admire...

The gown, a soft-looking lavender, seemed to cling to her, as though part of her rather than something she wore. Her hair was still pulled back, but not as aggressively as she usually wore it.

The usual word he would have used to describe Shepard—though never to anyone's ears but his own—was 'pretty'. Tonight, however, she looked somewhere between beautiful and stunning.

Which made his lack of confidence excuse die a horrible death. As long as she had a gun to go with this getup she had all the confidence she needed.

-J-

It had not surprised Shepard to find Alenko hanging around on the bridge. He could even say it was force of habit, if he wanted to, since he usually was asked to come with her. Everyone knew she liked having backup while on the Citadel, and Alenko was perfect for the job.

One couldn't really disarm a biotic, and Alenko did not leave the _Normandy_ without his amp.

She felt better: her pistol was small so as not to and she wasn't used to this model. If anyone could spot a concealed firearm on her, it would be Alenko. He saw her in her armor often enough, and—she realized belatedly—he had reason to pay closer attention than anyone else she could have asked.

The second point made Shepard want to fidget. She was never a fidgety person, but realization that she had invited scrutiny not purely professional made her suddenly awkward, like in dreams of being shoved suddenly on-stage without lines memorized or costume in place.

She wanted to groan inwardly: she had never fussed so much over hiding a necessary piece of equipment before.

She forced her mind to record minute details. The trick that had worked in the past, it would surely work now. Her marine's mind latched onto the placard of ribbons over his heart, identifying them, and the career of impressive service the represented.

But good grief, Alenko cleaned up well. He'd finally shaved the scruffy stubble he usually sported, and as far as mess dress went, he could have modeled it for a textbook. In fact, it would certainly improve the text.

Who didn't like pretty pictures?

"Pretty as a picture. Not a hair out of place."

Shepard's mind jerked, having expected a forthright 'no, I can't see the gun'. The phrasing was such that he could disavow anything except not wanting to draw attention to the fact that he was checking for and failed to find a concealed weapon. However, she didn't doubt that he meant the compliment.

She had expected to feel nervous, being around Alenko without the comfort of Alliance blue. She could say why, now that she found herself easy in his presence as she usually was: she didn't feel that she was being compared to anyone else. In the Alliance blues she did not find herself held up for comparison: she was one of those who set the bar.

In civilian clothes, though, she expected judgment by civilian standards. The press—if the media sharks were present—would. The other people at the party would. But Alenko...why would he?

"I thought I was going to be the last one out," Shepard announced, as she started forward, and ended up leading the way.

"Figured you could use some backup in case things go to sh—crap." His mother's voice echoed in his mind: she had not cared so much about low-grade profanities, as long as he didn't use them when he was dressed up. One 'showed the proper manners for the occasion'.

Shepard's eyes glittered. "Your mom, too, huh?"

Alenko reached to run a hand thought his hair but stopped. "Yeah."

"Thanks for waiting." She started off, a faint trace of her perfume drifting on the air. If a color could be distilled into perfume, the scent matched the dress. It was floral, but not sweet or cloying, almost bewitching.

"Alenko?"

"Yeah?"

"You've got a collar thing happening."

He found the spot where collar caught against jacket, and fixed it. "Better?"

Shepard examined him closely before nodding. "You could pose as a visual aid for the Regs."

Well, that was a big, fat compliment if ever he heard one.


	132. Lady and Gentleman

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"At least you didn't find it necessary to bring your gun." Ambassador Udina noted dryly, as soon as Shepard presented herself, with Alenko at her shoulder.

She did not dare look directly at Alenko, and he did not look at her, but each managed to catch the glitter of grim humor in the other's eyes. If only Udina knew...

Despite all efforts, however, Shepard found herself gritting her teeth, about to let Udina in on the secret before gracing him with several remarks so sharp they would have popped a less over-inflated ego completely.

Blame it on his upbringing, but enough was enough. Maybe it was the dress, maybe it was himself having heard too much of Udina's grousing since meeting the man, but Alenko's mouth opened and words poured out. "Ambassador, the Commander _is_ a lady when she _isn't _in uniform." Shepard glanced at him: that was an interesting assessment, and not one she expected from anyone. "If you can't speak politely, you've no business speaking at all." There was something in his tone usually not present, a vague hint that at this point, he was willing to take the flak and throw it back.

Shepard caught Alenko glance at her, as if to make sure he hadn't overstepped his bounds. By turning her head ever so slightly, she concealed from Udina the wink she flashed to Alenko.

The Ambassador colored up, grunted disapproval, and then strode out.

"Thank you," Shepard stated frankly. She could have answered for herself, they both knew it, but one of her mother's maxims kept ringing in her ears: '_let the man be the _gentleman'. Besides, he _had_ saved her from saying a few things she had no business saying while dolled up after the civilian fashion.

The few similarities in their upbringing made her wonder about his family.

"I hope I didn't…overstep myself," Alenko offered, but quite without repentance. Udina expected Shepard to snap back at him. He had not expected one of Shepard's subordinates to point out a few things any diplomat should already know.

Like how to speak to people.

"No, you didn't. In fact that was...gallant." She couldn't think of a better word that could be taken as friendly banter...or as a genuine compliment.

"It would also be gallant," Alenko began cautiously, "for a gentleman to offer the lady his arm." He suddenly felt the same way he did the first time his gravlock boots failed during zeegee training. That horrible, lurching feeling of being stuck in slow freefall with no way to stop it.

It lasted only a moment, for Shepard flashed him a grin, arched her eyebrows inquisitively, but lifted one hand, settling it comfortably in the crook of his proffered elbow. .

It took effort for Shepard to squash feeling like a modern-day Cinderella. Except, instead of ashes and linseed, she had shotgun shells and tech mines. Instead of a wicked stepmother and stepsisters, she had Saren and the geth.

Of course, everything was all in the disguise of comrades taking something far too lightly, but she knew for a fact that she would not have humored anyone else this way. This could, perhaps, have accounted for why she stood somewhat closer to Alenko than was strictly necessary. It was something he chose to pretend not to notice.

He realized, as they reached the top of the stairs leading down to the embassies' reception area, that Shepard was having trouble keeping up. It had to be the shoes, or perhaps it had to do with that concealed pistol of hers. Regardless, he checked himself, slowing down enough that she no longer labored to keep up.

The increase of pressure on his arm indicated she had noticed, and appreciated it.

-J-

Shepard's deft touch at encouraging people to let her be a wallflower showed within minutes, which was why she and Alenko ended up standing near a wall, watching couples waltzing about. From here she could see Pressly, Adams, and Capt. Anderson's backs as they leaned on the bar in quiet discussion.

That would be just like Anderson, making sure she was faring well enough, assuring himself that the crew had confidence in their leader. Or maybe he just wanted sea stories, to feel connected to events from which he had been severed.

It was nice by the wall. Twirling the still un-tasted champagne gave Shepard something to do with her hands, and every so often she caught a whiff of what she was sure was Alenko's aftershave. It smelled very attractive, and made her _very_ glad Alenko was a safe date.

Not that it was a date, and she wouldn't consider it one as long as she remained sober.

"Can you dance?" Alenko asked, watching the partygoers. The easy companionship maintained by the levity between them cleared away many potentially awkward moments.

She snorted softly into her untouched champagne. "Me? I do the Macarena and that's about it. . Can you?"

"Nope, and I can't do the Macarena …"

"Can't or _won't_?" Shepard inserted slyly.

He knew it had just gone on her list of things to do: 'get Alenko to do the Macarena'. Well, that was something she would have to live without. "Would you like to take a couple laps?"

He hit on something she would like very much. "You don't mind the crowd watching?" She waved to the room at large.

"Well, it's not your beloved Macarena, but..." Alenko trailed off innocently. She would rarely walk away from a challenge, particularly a playful one from a trusted teammate.

Shepard, with a wicked grin, set her champagne down on the nearest surface. "All right. Adapt and improvise."

"And we will overcome," he offered her his hand.

It was not a difficult feat, faking competence on the dance floor. Neither noticed that they ended up dancing closer together than they had upon first taking to the floor, or that the conversation gradually lost its playful quality, giving way to quiet conversation, which eventually lulled into quiet companionship.


	133. Fun

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was one AM when Shepard and Alenko returned to the _Normandy _after the diplomatic function. With the bad taste of a place they did not belong lingering in their mouths, sleep was not a priority.

This was why Williams—in the middle of a lap around the ship—was accosted by the officers and dragged off with them.

In stark contrast to the earlier diplomatic function (and all usual conventions), all three marines had abandoned standard-issue raiment.

Shepard sipped her Astro-Fizz, mind hyper-alert from a too-long day she had not yet called quits. Alenko had summed the situation up beautifully: 'I'm too damn tired to go to sleep, and if _that's _being a civilian, you can keep it!'

At which point she innocently pointed out that _he _hadn't _gone_ as a civilian, so why was he complaining?

That was when they had decided to go back out. Now, almost an hour later, Shepard knew she was getting punchy. The false good humor of tiredness had her tightly in its grip, yet she couldn't bring herself to cut the party short.

"I don't know where she gets the energy for that," Alenko announced, feeling philosophical.

Maybe it was the presence of so many nerds at one table, or maybe Williams just had a vein of _joie de vivre _as O'Conner had. Either way, she did not like sitting by the wall while at the club.

The song ended and changed. "Oh man…" Shepard looked at the overhead speakers, a half-nostalgic, half-disbelieving grin on her face.

"Old favorite?" The music was not to Alenko's taste, bringing to mind rednecks with big hats, bigger belt buckles, and…he glanced over at Shepard, the thought replaced by a fresh shoot of curiosity.

What would a spunky farm-girl Shepard look like?

"Oh, no, no," Shepard waved. "But it _was_ popular while I was in high school. You know—high school dances. Barn raisin's*." She snickered at her own joke.

Shepard glanced back at the dancing crowd. For a moment the dancers managed to synchronize their steps, then the moment was gone. She thumped the table with one hand, startling Alenko. "Excuse me…"

Shepard retreated, and then climbed up onto the dance floor.

Alenko shook his head. As old as Shepard's memories of the dance likely were, she did not seem to have forgotten any steps, with the result of looking fairly competent on stage. The sight made it easier to imagine a younger Shepard, one who wasn't trying to move the foundations of the universe with everything still piled on it.

If he didn't know better—and Alenko wondered if maybe he didn't—he'd have said she was having _fun_. The unbridled fun _normal_ people had dancing at two AM.

Too-late nights were good for that sort of thing. Goodness knew _he_ was having fun, nursing a soft drink and watching his cohorts' terpsichorean exploits.

Shepard pulled Williams aside for a moment when the song was over. Whatever she said had Williams' enthusiastic approval. The looks cast in his direction made Alenko's survival instincts flare.

He _knew_ Shepard had put it on her to-do list early: _'make Alenko get up and dance_'.

It wasn't happening. Sorry. She would just have to live without that.

Shepard flopped into a chair, regarding Alenko with a thoughtfulness clearly hiding deviousness. He didn't like it. All drifting thoughts popped like soap bubbles, wariness replacing them.

"We've got an idea." Shepard announced with the enthusiasm of the over-tired. The change in Alenko's expression made her chuckle: he seemed braced for a blow.

"Oh yeah?" Alenko knew he was right; he knew what this was about. "I don't dance."

"Not even a _little_?" She was referring to earlier, and none too abashedly.

No, _decidedly_ no. "The answer is 'no': sorry Shepard." In order to demonstrate that the conversation was over, he took a long sip of his soft drink.

"Come on," Shepard coaxed. "No one's in uniform, and I'll teach you the steps. You can stand between Williams and I. We'll keep you safe."

Alenko had to laugh wryly at this. "Look, they outlawed dancing bears _forever _ago. You two have fun…"

Shepard knew she was not out of the running, because Alenko was smiling. "I danced."

Alenko hung his head in amused resignation as the silence stretched. It was true: she did not get out on the dance floor very often. She also was watching him earnestly, which meant she had better arguments lined up. "Okay…_once_." He held up a finger.

"That's all I ask." She proceeded to talk him through the steps, which were simple so many people could quickly catch on…if at least one person knew all the steps in order.

By the time Shepard walked him up to the dance floor, Alenko wished he'd stuck to his guns and refused to participate. He suddenly understood more about Shepard's friend, O'Conner, though. The marine had left her mark on her best friend. Did Shepard see it?

About halfway through the song, Alenko found he didn't mind so much. At least he didn't miss as many steps as he had expected to, and thought he looked reasonably competent.

He was a _square_. And danced like one. Williams expected as much. Still, she was surprised Shepard managed to convince him to get up with the rest of them. Every day it looked more and more as though Shepard was the kind of person who could talk the devil out of his teeth.

When Alenko was finally installed back at the table, he heaved a heavy sigh, hardly believing he'd just done that.

"Did you have fun?" Shepard asked, twirling the contents of her Astro-Fizz bottle.

Alenko considered, then nodded. "Yeah…I did. Not enough to do it again, though," he appended quickly.

Shepard nodded her approval, with newly gained insight into O'Conner's insistence on dragging _her_ around in search of 'fun'. There was something rewarding in seeing a friend step out of their shell to do something out of the ordinary.

-J-

*The grammar-nut in me feels it necessary to point out that this is _not_ a misplaced apostrophe, or a possessive case: the word 'raising' is phonetically spelled (hence dropping the 'g'), the 's' makes it plural. She's pulling a 'farm girl' accent for the city boy's benefit. It has nothing to do with dried grapes. ^_-


	134. Java

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Happy Memorial Day. To all the veterans, retirees, and/or current servicemen/servicewomen who might be reading this: thank you for your service.

-J-

The coffee pot on the _SSV Normandy _could have told a great many interesting tales, if it could have spoken. The coffee pot saw, or heard from a distance, almost everything that went on aboard the _Normandy_.

For instance, it could tell how much the coffee aboard this ship 'sucked' to use the most popular complaint. And yet, copious amounts were consumed every day. Lynch mobs would go after anyone who emptied the pot and failed to refill it—human or krogan.

It could tell how several people missed whiskey in their coffee. Who liked cream, sugar, or—strangely enough—marshmallows in their coffee. It could tell which people drank the most in a day—Navigator Pressly. Or who drank the least—Tali, on account of her environmental suit or Garrus, being levo-amino intolerant. Or, of those who could partake, Private Fredericks held the laurels for 'least coffee consumed on a regular day'.

It could tell about boring, coffee-pot things. Like which coffee mug went to which marine—and which marine left chapstick lip marks on the rim, from excessive use of said mug (Corporal Harmony Smythe).

But the coffee pot could have told much more interesting, if still fairly mundane stories. Like how the marines usually prowled around the ship, or part of the ship, before their sleep-shift was over, 'just to check'. Or how the most consistent marine 'just checking' was Commander Shepard. Or how, after the first week or so, she usually ended up spending a few minutes—without coffee—chatting with Lt. Alenko. And how Lt. Alenko usually retired a few minutes after Commander Shepard.

Or how Wrex, the krogan, occasionally swiped a mug from beneath the counter to choke down the bad coffee—surreptitiously so no one could see him gag and shudder at the taste. But the caffeine was addictive, and Wrex had, accordingly, become addicted to it.

He also didn't want anyone to know, despite his own lack of subtlety.

It could tell how Dr. Liara T'soni 'got used' to the coffee, to the point that after awhile, she wasn't fit to talk to before she'd had half a cup. And how she was mystified as to how she'd acclimated to the stuff in the first place, when coffee was—according to her—uncivilized sludge. If the coffee pot could feel, it would have felt a swell of pride at weaning her off the tealeaves she'd originally adhered to.

The navy ran on caffeine, after all, and marines couldn't live without it. The crew's add-ons were a different matter, and it was good to see them adapting to local customs and culture.

Though, admittedly, if the marines (most notably the ground team) eased off on the caffeine consumption, they might find it easier to get to sleep and _stay_ asleep at night so they didn't wake up bleary-eyed and caffeine deprived in the mornings. Not that the coffee pot would have mentioned this, even if it could.

Why put itself out of a job?

It could point out that although Gunnery Chief Williams had a cup with breakfast, most days she didn't have more than just that one steaming mugful. And even then, she didn't usually finish it. But coffee was part of marine culture, and Williams was thoroughly immersed in said culture.

It could inform the good Dr. Chakwas, reliably, that most of Navigator Pressley's nervous condition came from too much caffeine. The man really ought to taper off (despite his caffeine dependence making for coffee pot job security); not everyone could guzzle the stuff and not show too many side effects.

It could tell—though only from second-hand accounts—how Chief Engineer Adams hated seeing open cups of coffee in engineering. How his 'tolerance' of liquids near the core allowed them near the entryway…provided sippy lids were used. So engineers usually drank their coffee standing at the machine, rather than taking them to be savored throughout the morning.

It was from these machine-side conversations that the coffee pot could tell about engineering's fascination with the quarian working there.

The coffee pot would neglect to mention the pilot's trouble moving around—though more important to keep quiet was his habit of playing solitaire and talking to himself, when he was sure no one was listening. Even if the coffee pot could have listened, or spoken, it probably would have kept silent. Plainly, the pilot savored the opportunities of addressing the most knowledgeable person in the mess at these times—without dispute as to whether he really was all he was cracked up to be. Though, most of these personal conversations tended to revolve around matters other than piloting.

The coffee pot could speak with authority of the bond between the humans on the ground crew—mostly because they tended to congregate, since they shared the same shift. It was subtle, but obvious, and transcended boundaries like 'rank'. Rank was a thing of convenience, and simply gave orders a place in one's priorities. On the ground there was 'us' and 'everyone else'. And 'everyone else' usually had it in for 'us'.

-J-

Shepard sighed as she poured herself a cup of coffee, for a moment watching the overhead lights glinting off the drink's dark surface. In an odd moment of whimsy, she wondered exactly how much a person could learn about a ship and her crew by listening to the coffee pot alone.

Probably quite a bit.

"Daydreaming? A tough marine?" Williams, looking tired, but not completely wiped out, teased.

"Just thinking." Shepard set the coffee pot back, returning to the table where the coffee-less Williams and Alenko slouched.

"About what?" Alenko asked, stretching tight shoulder muscles.

"Just…nonsense." Shepard waved the nonsense away. Everyone had moments of utter nonsense floating between their ears.

"No, really," Williams grinned.

"Just java." Shepard answered, satisfied to see this answer was strange enough that no one wanted further explanation.

The coffee noticed, though no one else did, that Shepard and Alenko usually sat closer than was strictly necessary.


	135. Favor

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Shit," Shepard slackened her pace for a moment, her eyes darting about for an escape route, but the only way back to the _Normandy_ was blocked. "Frak."

"What do you want to do, Skipper?" Williams asked, nervously.

Shepard ran a tongue thoughtfully along her upper teeth. "All right, here's the plan. Williams, come with me. Alenko...you've got this."

"_I've_ got this?" he demanded, with a look of incredulous shock.

"Look," Shepard brought the three of them into a huddle. "If _I _do it, we'll be here for an hour and a half."

"Hear, hear," Williams intoned.

"If _you_ do it, they'll snap a couple pictures, you can say you don't know anything; they will _believe_ you." Shepard said it seriously, but Williams smirked and—taking advantage of a moment when only Alenko could see her expression, bounced her eyebrows at him.

Alenko winced, but persisted. "…I might let something slip."

"I can help with that: you don't know anything, and that's an order." Alenko put his face in his hand, though whether amused at her joke—Shepard would never earnestly throw her weight around like that with a teammate—or still in protest, it was hard to say. "You'll be fine," Shepard clapped him on the shoulder.

He resigned himself, knowing that if Shepard did this he would end up with a migraine from extended exposure to all those bright lights. He didn't trust those media piranhas.

If _he_ undertook this…

Orders _were_ orders, the sly marine in him noted helpfully, even those not seriously meant. And he could see possibilities if he _did _shoulder the responsibility, ones that made him want to do so.

Still, he made one last bid to get out of it, more a token resistance than anything else. "They want _you_, not _me_."

"We could let them talk to Williams."

"Be glad to," Williams grinned.

"_No_," both officers responded flatly, to Williams' feigned disgust.

"I don't normally keep track of who owes what between teammates, but this is above and beyond, Shepard," Alenko announced.

"I know," Shepard allowed guiltily. "Ugh. I'll do it—it's my job, I'll do it." She made to move past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

"I'll take one for the team but," he glanced at the opposition, "You owe me for this one. Big time."

Shepard and Williams exchanged looks. "…let's talk terms, I don't like agreeing to things without—"

"You don't have time." Alenko announced flatly.

"If I didn't trust you—and I do, as evidenced—I would tell you to go space yourself and I'd stop being a wimp." Shepard announced.

"Everyone has wimp days. Some people have wimp _weeks_," but Alenko's tone held warm amusement as he mentally prepared himself for attack.

Shepard was about to try to sidestep him again, when Williams spoke up. "And some people are just slugs, let's _go_," her tone indicated that the time for colloquy was over.

"All right, let's see if I can't beat your time for getting out of one of these interviews," Alenko set the timer on his omnitool.

Shepard, watching the enemy descend, nodded. "All right, I owe you."

"If I ever see that pink armor Carter's got lined up again…" Alenko warned, serious but still with light overtones.

Shepard's face lit up. "I will call Livion before we pull out and have him line something up. Something flattering in cammoufl—shit, here they come. See you aboard ship." Shepard and Williams broke away, leaving Alenko to follow.

The pink armor was a source of endless amusement and he prayed he would never, _ever_ have to wear it. He could handle it—he didn't have to look at it, once it was on. Most of the ground team would try not to laugh (some would try harder than others) but Wrex…

Alenko's dignity was now safe.

Still, nothing out of pocket on Shepard's side, and it would be interesting to see if he couldn't wriggle out of this entanglement. He barely heard Shepard's not-quite-terse answer to calls of 'Commander Shepard!' before bright lights hit him. Trying not to squint, he put on what he felt was his best, sweetest smile: the one he would use when remarking Udina or the turian councilor 'I'd love to help you out, which way you come in?'

"Lieutenant…Alenko?" The newscaster, a young woman of twenty-five or so, asked cautiously as her small camera crew settled around her. She must be new; old hands in the media used their camera bots almost exclusively.

"I am."

"Well, let's cut to the chase. What can you tell us about the events on Feros? Newscasters were met with unusually strong resistance when we tried to go in."

"Sorry, Miss…" he trailed off.

"Dwyer."

"Miss Dwyer. Any missions conducted on Feros are classified information—that's the price you pay when Spectres get involved. Too bad Spectres are good for business where the press is concerned."

Dwyer smiled ruefully. "We can confirm the presence of geth at the site. What can you say about that?"

"Very little, I'm afraid: the geth presence on Feros—being unclassified—was a limited incursion. They must have relied on…well, some of your competitors for intel. There's nothing there to interest them." There, a slam at Westerlund News (and by extension that Al-Jilani woman) as well as the truth. There was nothing there to interest the geth _now_.

"Is there _anything_ concrete you can tell me?" Dwyer asked, not exasperated, but recognizing a lost cause when confronted with one.

"Well," he made a show of groping for some tidbit to throw to the press. "No Alliance personnel were injured while on the ground." That was true, too, if one counted Shepard as a Spectre, and therefore independent of the Alliance. "I can't tell you much more, Miss Dwyer…not without violating the mission-classification parameters." Then, figuring a little charm might help his cause, asked earnestly, "You wouldn't want me to get hip deep in trouble, would you?"


	136. Worn Out

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

_Garrus._ _Now why would you think I was pissed about you leaving? _

I WAS MORTIFIED!

Antilles Vakarian stood up, angling the recorder so it could capture him moving around. _I keep telling you: one of these days you're going to stick your head out too far and something's going to latch onto your neck! And now you're running with a Spectre. Boy, do you have a death wish? We could have transferred somewhere else on the Citadel that would be almost as wish-fulfilling!_

_And your Spectre? She's not a Spectre! The badge is nickel plated! _

He threw himself into his chair, readjusting the recorder before putting his head in one hand. _Garrus, son. _A very deep breath, now that the initial explosion as over. The mail from his son had been extremely unexpected. _It isn't too late for you to come back. I'm sure something can be arranged. I know your half-a-Spectre puts in appearances on the Citadel every so often._

_I don't know why I'm trying to tell you this, you've never listened before. But at least listen to this: humans aren't like us. Don't let the lax discipline lull you into a state of complacency, and don't think for one minute that they won't throw you under the CRT car if things get really bad. I don't care how many non-humans are on that ship, once things take a turn for the worst, they'll be the first ones served up. I don't want that to happen to you._

He considered for a moment, as though debating whether to soften that statement, knowing full well that there were plenty of turians who exhibited the same behavior. Well, he hoped not _many_, but he couldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that they existed.

In the end he let the statement stand, huffing as he cast around his office. _Your friend Lang brought something he called 'croquets' the other day. Ended up poisoning half the humans having lunch with him. Himself included. We're short-handed this week, until they get over…whatever it is. I've seen a lot of things in my time, but this has to be one of the most disgusting. Practically had to carry them out of the Academy. _

_And the _smell_. This was worse than any drunks of any species making any kind of mess I've ever seen. At least the keepers dealt with the mess. _There, that was something neutral, right? Maybe amusing?

Antilles did not feel like being amusing, but it was an attempt. It was hard talking to Garrus in person—the boy never listened to a _word_, because he yapped too loud to hear anyone else. It was hard sending messages because they inevitably ended up like this one: full of everything he tried to say when Garrus wasn't in a mood to listen.

The urge to remind Garrus of several key concepts (like honoring duty, and not giving up when something _seemed '_better', shiny, or exciting) kept coming back up. He was aware that _she _would want peace between father and son. She knew very little about the contention because he and Garrus didn't want her to know.

It was one of the few things they agreed on.

Everything seemed to come back to _her_ these days, and not for the first time, he caught himself wondering if Garrus did not have the right idea about getting off the Citadel.

Except, in Antilles' case, leaving C-Sec meant going back to Palaven.

Antilles leaned on his desk, hands clasped before his mouth. Finally he sighed, voicing the real reason for his agitation, knowing frustration with his wayward son was just a convenience right now, and he should not mix the two concerns. It wasn't fair to Garrus. And Garrus _would _need to know, sooner or later…

_Another thing you need to know…your mother…she's not well, son. The doctors, they're not exactly sure what's wrong with her but they think…they think…_ Antilles struggled for a few more minutes before all the rigidity went out of his posture. It would be the first time he admitted the lurking, ever-nearing possible explanation for her lingering malaise. _They think it might be the precursor to, or the early stages of Corpalis Syndrome. _The words seemed to drop a cold stone into his gizzard. There, they were out. It felt like defeat to admit the possibility that was becoming a probability, but the words were out. _Now don't fly off the handle, Solana's looking after her…and Corpalis is so rare…_

There was no conviction in his words. He knew the worst and accepted it as fact, confirmed or not. He could almost hear the impending argument _this_ information would touch off. It was one thing to work on the Citadel, go back to Palaven on annual holidays. It was another to continue leaving his mate on Palavan while all this was happening…

…but treatments and doctors cost money, and C-Sec paid well. Maybe not enough, but it was a start…

_You might want to think about sending _her _a letter. Don't mention Spectres, bullets, or anything that might upset her. Just…let her hear you're okay, and that you're…dammit, boy, why couldn't you just stay with C-Sec? Make things easier on everyone?_

There were too many hard words in the letter. Too many pointless words. And in all those words, there was no way to bridge the gap, so that he could deliver the bad news. Whatever else Garrus did, or thought, or felt, he was a son who loved his mother.

And then the fight of 'why didn't you tell me earlier' would start, and Antilles Vakarian did not think he could take it. He had never felt so old.

He flipped the recorder off, putting his head in his hands. After a very, very long few minutes he reached down blindly, and groped until he found the button that erased the message. He had never felt as though he'd lost his family more than he did now.

-J-

Author's notes: I am aware that ME3 may affect this chapter, but for now it'll stand.

Also, I see Corpalis as something that starts slow and grows progressively more virulent consuming the victim with increasing rapidity. According to Raven Studios, it's not necessarily a short-term disease (and since Bioware didn't comment on it, I'm taking a little creative license. That and I wanted to write Vakarian-papa again. ^_^)


	137. Mirror

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"_You've got an asari on your team!" Sarah Williams practically shouted at the recorder before dissolving into hysterical giggles as she flopped backwards onto her bed, still holding the recorder, which made the image jump around erratically. "You're running with the en-ne-my!" she sang, before recovering herself. "So? You want to tell me more about this crew? I know aliens, where there's one, there's more…_

"…_and speaking of '_more'_, I know you're still glaring at me. I swear, Sadie having puppies was totally not my fault. Your dumb dog opened the fence _by herself _and got out. We're lucky she's dumb enough not to wander off too far while…uh…'frolicking'." _Sarah gave a nervous giggle, looking around the room as though for inspiration before her mind seemed to catch up with her mouth.

"_Don't worry, we'll deal with the puppies. Um, Mom is actually kind of glad to have them. Much as she still complains about Sadie getting underfoot in the kitchen, there's never a word against the pups. Must be, you know, a 'mom thing'. Sadie wouldn't let anyone _else _near them for after they were born. _

_"Not even loving Sarah, who is tasked to feed Sadie every morning and evening. _

_So, we've got four: Tank, Ryan, Blossom…and Ulysses. He's our troublemaker. He likes to hide under beds, and yap at feet that get to close. He also wants to go…_outside_. As in, _outside _the _fence_. Oh no, puppy dog—don't worry, we fixed the lock. No one and nothing is getting out of (or into) this yard without our knowledge or say-so."_ All this accompanied by very definite, illustrative hand gestures.

"_So what's it like working with an asari? They're…weird. Not because they're blue, they're just...weird. _I _could be blue with enough body paint."_ The resentment that asari looked fairly human but were more widely accepted than human-humans was stamped all over Sarah's face. She looked on the verge of making several uncomplimentary comments, but refrained from doing so with an effort. "_She's not giving you crap, is she? I know they're supposed to be all flawless and superior. Don't let her. They've got enough of a stranglehold on galactic stuff as it is._"

"_I hope Shepard knows what she's doing. I know she's a Spectre, and was Alliance for...well, _forever_...but still. She's human…she _is _human, right? Steel backbone and ic ewater in her veins aside? Right? Panther-like sneaky-feet, maybe?_

_"Well, she must be _mostly _human, if you're sticking with her... Still, you'd think a human crew __would be good enough._"

Williams honestly considered pitching the recording across the room and sending her sister back a nasty-gram: the steel and ice water comments about Shepard were fine—the Skipper would laugh—but some of this...

"_Well, you're good enough, Ash, and don't let _anyone_, alien or Alliance, tell you otherwise. We're backing you, one hundred percent. And keeping you in our prayers._

"_Oh, yeah that Claudio Murray movie? _Total dud_! I may never watch another one of that man's movies again. That Hamlet with elcor would be preferable. Do you know how long that thing was? It's _long_, and I would sit through it, _live and smelly_, rather than watch that Murray vid again." _Sarah shuddered before checking something out of frame. "_I've gotta go. Group project. Speaking of duds, I ended up in a group without one single idiot in it. We're going to beat this project with the ugly stick. _

_"Oh, by the way, that Kaidan? He's _cute_. Later, sis." _

The recording blinked out.

Ashley Williams sat back, her stomach squirming with discomfiture as Sarah's vidmail brought something home to her, she had not noticed before now. It was not the Alenko comment—popular consensus among the female crewmembers was that Lt. Alenko was a real looker, if a bit cordial with everyone except Joker, possibly Dr. Chakwas, and the ground team.

No, listening to her sister was like looking in a mirror, and finding the reflection had changed. Her sisters were as xeno-cautious as she was when she last saw them.

Now, she found herself rolling her eyes at the thought of Liara as 'the enemy'. The girl could barely hold a pistol. She was an _egghead, _and couldn't stranglehold a stuffed toy.

Garrus…he was a turian, yeah, sure. But for someone who was not her type (physically or personality-wise), he was also a decent guy. Great to get drunk with, since humans and turians...well, they didn't do compromising things with (or to) each other when they got drunk. Nothing worse than karaoke or taking over a dance floor. So he had mandibles and talons—he also had a sniper rifle, and wasn't afraid to use it. Picking out scum from the universe one bullet at a time.

Tali was a kid trying to find her way blind in a furniture-filled room. She was trying so hard to take the geth horde apart one walking carburetor by one; it was amazing she didn't bust something in her suit. It was her people's mess, but she was working to clean it up the only way she knew how. A geek-nerd, sure, but most quarians were—and that was _not_ a stereotype. Tali said it herself, though she did not use the word 'geek-nerd'.

Wrex was, well, Wrex. She had not had to threaten to shoot him, and he stayed away from her. That was okay. Wrex didn't really like anyone, though he respected Shepard. If he didn't, he wouldn't have stuck around.

It was weird, unsettling to find her paradigm had shifted subtly over such a short time, when her family's had not.

She shivered, unable to bring herself to share these realizations. Besides, if she ever let Sar know that all aliens weren't so bad—or if Sar found out about the change in opinion—she would get a letter with a comment about mandibles and face paint being sexy.

Or a query as to whether turians could purr, and a request for an audio capture.


	138. Under the Rain

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The recorder switched on, revealing a rain washed scene rendered in shades of twilight and silver. The gentle pound of raindrops was audible, as Abby Williams set the recorder down. She did not wear anything she needed to be laced into, but comfortable pajamas and a silky red bath robe, her hair still coiled stylishly about her head. She settled in her chair before addressing the recorder.

"_Heya sis. It's raining," she motioned over her shoulder, as she leaned back into her wicker chair, closing her eyes meditatively. _"_I've got another chair right in front of me, so I'm going to pretend you're sitting in it. It's actually getting late, but I can't sleep, and I wanted to send a message back to you, anyway. I hate being edgy like this, and need something to do...ah, that didn't come out right. Don't feel like me composing this message is some duty I felt I needed to perform. It's not._

"_It's actually therapeutic."_ She opened her eyes, losing some of her dreamy unconcern.

"_Before you ask—you did ask, in your last message, but before you start trying to prompt a prerecorded letter, I know how you are—yes, I did respectably in the tournament. Um, _quite _respectably, as a matter of fact."_ She drew herself up. "_Not tip top, but I'm going to the next level, which is in three weeks._

Abby gave a giggle, as though unable to quite believe what she was about to say. "_The last guy I put on the mats actually asked for my phone number…or my email account, if I wasn't comfortable with him calling me. Kind of weird, it's never happened to me before. He's nice, I guess. I still can't figure out what kind of guy asks a girl for her contact information after she royally trounces him…but maybe I'll figure it out later. He made it to the next tournament, too, so…we'll see. I get the distinct impression he means to put _me _on the mats next time around—like it's some kind of challenge. I could be wrong but it'll be…interesting."_

Williams grinned. That _was_ classically Abby. She liked a challenge, but was smart about the ones she picked. She never dashed headlong into things, but she never over-analyzed them either.

"_As far as the match with him—his name is Andrew (I can't pronounced his last name)—went, I left _bruises_, too. That's why I'm wondering. I don't think he's into _pain_, but still…you've got to wonder, in this day and age." _She glanced around, as though mildly satisfied that she _could _leave bruises and yet get a request for further communication afterwards.

Williams assumed Abby had walked away with the guy's number after giving out her own—must be part of being a Williams. She knew her sister well enough to suppose that this Andrew fellow was not someone just _anyone _could knock around. Not easily, anyway.

Maybe she would have to make extra plans for her next shore leave; it sounded as though she might need to screen this guy, if he had any interest in her little sister. The Williams family was like that, protective, clannish, and always in each others' business.

And it worked for them. Always had.

"…accidentally_, but still," _the message continued, almost drowned out by Williams' thoughts, "_I walked away with a few bruises of my own, but not from that match. Three matches later, this dingus—I didn't bother with _his _name—was waving his sword around like he was in a cheap vid. He didn't win, obviously, but the match did not go on very long. The refs _disqualified _him after he clobbered me—incompetence on the field, because _after _he clobbered me his sword ended up flying out of his hands and clocked one of the _referees_._

"_The ensuing silence was...ugly..._

"_Turns out, he was a substitute. The match didn't count for anything, as far as my tally goes. They should have gone one man short, rather than let a teammate be DQed. It makes the whole team look bad when one person is…uh, _unskilled_. I don't want to call names any further. Fill in the blanks if you want to, Ash, I know you can. _

"_Will you listen to the rain? It was storming really bad, earlier. Sadie and the puppies (with the exception of Ulysses, of course—that pup is utterly _fearless_) have been hiding under Mom's bed ever since the thunder started. Ulysses actually stayed _on _her bed, barking back every time the thunder rolled. They're probably still there. We've been in a real dry stretch, the ground really needs it. _

"_Mom's garden is shriveling up, and she can't bear it, not after all the work she put into it this year. She's progressed from flowers to vegetables, and is looking into some of those weird dwarf fruit trees. _

"_Personally, I think Lt. Alenko got to her, with that nice note he sent via you. It looks like a salsa patch rather than a vegetable garden." _A very long pause, for the words to sink in. "_No, I'm kidding. Mom was thrilled, though, to have that mouth-burning, digestive tract-destroying, brain-rotting stuff appreciated. Ugh, jokes don't transfer well to holo recordings, I guess. Too bad, I heard some _good _ones that would make mom gape in horror. I'll share them the next time I see you_." Abby winked broadly.

"_What's it like, Ash, being in space all the time?_" Abby's voice dropped to sober not-quite-concern as she glanced off to one side, examining something contemplatively. "_Don't you get a little nervous, being surrounded by a whole lot of…nothing? Or start to feel…isolated? I ask, because I'm actually going off-world for the next tournament of my swordsmanship circuit. We're actually going to have to hit a relay, and I've never done that. Not nervous—that's Lynn's territory—but just a little…apprehensive."_

As Abby's words settled into meditative silence, Williams could almost smell the rain pattering in the background.


	139. Insanity

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The holo recorder clicked on, revealing a harassed-looking Lynne Williams. _"Ashley Williams, you are insane." The recorder was put on some surface with a sharp click, a crease forming between Lynne's elegantly arched eyebrows. "Completely and utterly. Guess what was on the news! 'Commander Shepard and Team Save Colony from Geth Attack'. We got to see Feros' Prothean Skyway—littered with the biggest geth I've ever seen! What has that crazy woman got you doing? Don't smile—I know you're smiling, thinking 'that's my job, Lynne'. _

"_Which just goes to show, you're as crazy as she is, and I'll bet you're loving every minute of it. You always were the crazy one in the family…just, watch yourself, okay? Those geth were huge! And I _swear_, a _nuke _couldn't have wreaked more destruction. What were you _using_? Please don't tell me it's standard issue—surely they'd at least give you better than standard, seeing how Shepard's a Spectre? No? If not…lie to me."_

Lynne took a deep breath. "_Okay, I feel better. You _know _I worry, and I can't see how you wouldn't have been on the ground crew. You're a complete adrenaline junkie, you know that, Ash?" _But Lynne smiled as she said it, her worry and angst easing with the introductory explosion. "_That's what I miss around here. Sar's like a caffeinated Chihuahua, and nothing ruffles Abbs. Me…well, you know me, I worry, and Mom is…mom._

"_I'm actually on Mars right now, so if you get this early or later than the others, that's why. My boss is making the rounds and guess who goes with him? Not that I mind, I like traveling, and my idea of a crazy-busy schedule would probably be the sort of thing you'd handle before breakfast. Can you tell me anything about what you've been doing? Or where you've been besides Feros? _

"_Probably not, but I'm interested, so…bear that in mind?" _Lynne settled back in her chair, her fingers laced thoughtfully.

"_I have decided I like space travel. It was insane when we hit the relay that would ping us to Arcturus, but overall I _like _space travel. We had a layover at Arcturus fuel depot. The station looks huge—you're living there, now, when you're not on the _Normandy_, right?_

"_I don't think I could _live _in deep space, though. Something about having no atmosphere, except the stuff contained by the station. Still, whatever floats your boat. Speaking of stations, you've been on the Citadel a couple times? Send me a souvenir. Please? Pretty please? Or photos? It's not likely I'll __ever get there, and I'd love to see it. Or parts of it."_

Lynne gave a shrug, unabashedly amused at her own enthusiasm. "_Yeah, in case you can't tell, I am _insanely _curious about where you've been, and what you're doing while you're there. I know you can't tell me, but it doesn't stop me from being curious. Remember how we used to keep track of Dad on the pegboard? Well, if you could talk a little more, or keep track, I'd love to keep one for you—well, and for me, too, but that's why thumbtacks come in different colors. That's not asking for too much information, is it? Just knowing what worlds you've hit?_

"_I've enclosed a souvenir for you—you've probably already found it._" Lynne groped on her desk before producing a small glass vial full of red dirt. "_One hundred percent Mars dirt," _she waved indicatively, as though exhibiting something through an extranet shopping site, "_the original 'red sand'. They sell it in those little glass vials you're supposed to put on a necklace or a bracelet. Its touristy stuff, but you always wanted to see Mars, and the Prothean Ruins there. No photos, but I thought you'd like the Mars sand, you know, to go with your Luna dust. As we used to say as kids, 'they can keep each other company'." _

Lynne fell silent, putting the vial out of site for shipping, as she considered what else to say, or debating if she had said enough. Somewhere out of frame, a cheerful jingle played. Lynne squeezed her eyes shut, plainly of the opinion that someone _would_ try to call her while she was composing a letter to one of her sisters. "_Aw, frak…that will be my boss, hang on, sis._"

Lynne vanished from the frame, followed by rummaging sounds, as if she had forgotten where her omnitool was. For a few minutes, snatches of conversation given in a tone of practiced patience filled the background, unintelligible. "_I tell you, I'm starting think…you know, do you want to switch bosses? Mine would_ lose his head _if it wasn't attached to his shoulders. Well, I guess that means job security for me…and no one putting bullets in my direction. You haven't had to pull any slugs out of your armor, yet, have you?_

"_You know what, never mind. I don't want to know. Really." _Lynne suddenly chuckled, looking rueful. "_Isn't that great? I ask you something and then don't want to know. I can't decide if ignorance is bliss or not…but I suppose as long as you're happy doing what you do…_

Lynne's brow crinkled again as she grimaced thoughtfully. "…_you are, aren't you? I know you wanted to be space side, but I just want to hear you say it. It's crazy, to me, but you always were the adventurous one. _

"_Love you much, lots of hugs, _

_Lynne." _

The recorder clicked off, then clicked back on, revealing a very close shot of Lynne's face, and a somewhat conspiratorial look.

"_Oh, PS: What was all that green spatter about? On Feros, I mean, the stuff was just…_everywhere. No _one wanted to comment, but it looked absolutely _disgusting_. Bet you hard credits whatever it was is _toxic_, I hope you washed your hands afterwards. You never know with space goo. Anyway, love you, sis, WRITE ME!" _Lynne hissed insistently, "_Lynne again." _Still laughing, Lynne shut down the recorder.


	140. Gearwheel

Sorry this is late: life threw me a couple curve balls.

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"This _sucks_," Shepard growled as she groped for a screwdriver with one hand, while holding a faceplate open with the other.

Alenko handed her the screwdriver, vaguely aware of her fingers dancing lightly along his until she found the instrument. He would have held the tiny panel open himself, but—he hated to admit it—his fingers weren't delicate enough. They had tried, and he had only ended up in her way—to their joint amusement.

Shepard's sudden desire to work on her standard-issue Bluewire (which she kept, due to regulations, but never used), made little sense, but it supplied a pleasant enough way to fill some of the off-duty hours.

"All right you turkey…" she breathed at the omni-tool. "Hold that light a little higher?"

Alenko smiled without trying to hide it. Shepard's attention was so fixed on the omni-tool they were modifying—seemingly for the 'fun' of doing so— that he did not have to worry about her techie grousing being directed at him. He raised the light, watching how shadows fell, the better to position the beam.

"Beautiful…" Shepard looked so self-satisfied as she straightened up that she could have given a cat a run for its money. "All right, let's move on…"

Alenko turned over the omni-tool.

Shepard took the light, holding it up with a tech's understanding of where a light needed to be to serve its purpose, without casting weird shadows into the workspace. "Let me ask you," Shepard leaned in, "can't you do the screws biotically?"

"I'm no good with micro, Shepard. Got my lens?"

Shepard produced the technician's glass, letting Alenko pull it (and her hand) where he wanted it.

"Why're we doing this again?" Not that he minded. It was interesting.

Shepard did not move either the light or the lens. "Because we can. Because it's _fun_." It was not as though anyone was really paying attention to them, using Williams' workbench while Williams herself watched vidmail from home elsewhere.

"You call abusing this poor defenseless omni-tool 'fun'?" Shepard deftly turned the light when he raised his gaze to her face so it did not catch him in the eyes.

Shepard's lopsided smirk was accompanied by a wicked chuckle. Had they not both had hands full, she might even have gently nudged him in the ribs. "Come on, it's not like I'm abusing _you_."

"True…come on you little…" he trailed off, catching his lower lip between his teeth. "Can you get on my other side?"

"I thought you didn't like me near your shooting arm," Shepard noted innocently.

Alenko said nothing, merely took the lens from Shepard, who obligingly moved to stand near his other shoulder. Once she finished moving, she took the lens back, peering over his shoulder as he hunched to frown at the omni-tool. "You know we'll never get this fixed, right?" Her face was so close that he could see the tiny scars near her hairline, white where the lights caught them; souvenirs from Elysium, she once mentioned.

"That's part of the fun, too. Just means we've got an excuse to keep trying." Shepard wondered what, exactly, she ought to read into the words—they were truthful, but perhaps too much so.

"There it is, get the tweezers," Alenko shifted quickly, making room for Shepard to reach around him.

Shepard grabbed the requested instrument and leaned in again, for once unaware of how close she and Alenko were. This was a techs' project. Sentiment did not come into it.

Or did it?

"There we go…stay with me…" Shepard breathed, her breath tickling Alenko's ear as she leaned past him, and grasped the chip with the tweezers. He repressed the urge to shy away from the gentle puff of warm air which tickled his skin.

Alenko held steady, watching as she inserted a toothpick with technicians' tack on it before pressing the loose chip down with the tweezers, counting slowly to five to make sure the tack held it.

Shepard straightened as Alenko picked up the omni-tool and turned it on.

It fizzled and gave out with a disconsolate whir. He gave the omni-tool a dubious look, then gave Shepard an 'I told you so' sort of smile as he held the tool out to her.

It was a smile with—judging by Alenko's usual standards—far too many teeth. For a moment Shepard's mind pinged a warning that because that simple seemed to have too many teeth she should be very careful.

She shut down the instinct sharply with two indelible facts: it was always good to see unbridled smiles, and she trusted Alenko. They wouldn't be here, working on stupid techie projects, if she didn't.

Shepard took it, banged it twice on the table with supreme nonchalance, then gave it a shake. Something rattled. "Cover me." She handed him the light and set about tracking down the rattling piece.

Alenko decided he was not the sort of person who enjoyed taking omni-tools apart and putting them back together…but doing it as part of a team was nice. "You're never going to win, Shepard, I think it's got you."

"I won't be bested by a _machine_. Sets a bad precedent." It was Shepard's turn to try not to shiver as Alenko's breath danced across her ear as he laughed.

"The geth'll be glad of a precedent."

"I'm a woman with a screwdriver, Alenko."

"I've got your light. Keep that screwdriver pointed in a safe direction."

"Haha!" Shepard crowed as, when she turned the omni-tool on, the display lit up with a gentle whir.

"That was unexpected." The declaration was obviously a joke, enhanced by the almost deadpan way it was uttered.

Shepard moved so she could face him, and tapped his temple gently with two fingers. "You've just got to let the gearwheels turn."

She regretted the familiarity of the gesture immediately. It was unfair that she could not even extend basic friendly gestures without worrying that someone might interpret them as something other than professional camaraderie.


	141. Precious Treasure

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Tali took a deep breath, her air filtration device hissing softly. For the past five minutes, she had loitered about the mess hall, scraping herself together. It turned out to be a blessing, putting her Pilgrimage on hold in order to assist Shepard's mission; it brought _this _into reach. If she survived to see the end of it…

She shook her head sharply. No, it did not do to think like that. She must think positively. Even Liara, the baby on the crew, still clung tenaciously to positive notions. It was not, however, positive or negative feedback over which Tali mulled.

It was actually Shepard, or rather, Shepard's response to Tali's as yet unspoken request. Shepard was a stickler for doing things correctly; her methods might sometimes verge on bending the rules, but all in all she kept her methods 'acceptable' and results 'good'. It was Shepard's deep-running vein of altruism upon which Tali was counting.

She did not know the details, but she did understand something catastrophic had happened in Shepard's past, her younger life, if she interpreted the hints properly. Everyone knew Shepard had no family, so Tali could only assume the catastrophe had to do with that. It would, perhaps, give Shepard a vein of sympathy to the quarian situation. However, Tali knew deep down that Shepard disapproved of the way the geth problem was originally handled, even if she politely refrained from saying it, avoiding the topic with a neutral 'they did what they thought was best'.

Which brought her back to her current problem. Shepard did not condone unnecessary loss of life…but the geth weren't _alive—_Shepard freely admitted it.

But Tali also knew Shepard did not approve of genocide, and the geth were—after a fashion—conscious. Sentient.

Finally, the quarian scraped up her courage and strode over to the door, left ajar to signify that Shepard was in her office and available to the crew.

Tali tapped on it politely.

"Come in."

Tali entered.

Shepard sat at her desk, the back half of the room obscured by a privacy screen, breaking up Shepard's sleeping quarters from her work quarters. "I was wondering if I might have a word with you, Shepard?"

"Pull up a chair." Shepard saved whatever she was working on, and pivoted her chair to face Tali, leaning back in it and sagging with tiredness.

Tali obeyed, fetching one of the chairs against the left wall, and setting it across from Shepard. Tali took a moment to examine Shepard. Stress and worry were beginning to etch little lines in her face. Or did those lines show only because she was stressed and worried, and so often she forgot to stop crumpling up her features? "You look tired."

"I am. But," she waved to the console, "life just doesn't quit. What's on your mind?"

Tali had the sneaking suspicion Shepard already knew why she was here, and opted to pretend polite ignorance, allowing Tali to pick her timing and her words. Shepard was perceptive, or perhaps it had less to do with perception and more to do with the last mission.

"It's about the last mission—clearing out those geth outposts." Shepard nodded, as with suspicions confirmed. "You got quite a bit of data out of it…" Tali paused.

Shepard said nothing, but nodded again.

Raw data or not, Tali's insides clenched. What a gift to bring back to her people! Insight into the geth, into their evolution…maybe a way to take back the quarian homeworld…

Tali shook her head sharply. She must not count her chickens—so the humans said—before they hatched. "I want a copy, Shepard. Please." The words came out in an order Tali wished she could have revised.

"This is for your Pilgrimage, isn't it?"

Of the crew, Shepard was one of the more knowledgeable about quarians, because she asked questions, and took mental notes of the answers. Shepard understood, or at least knew, what this could mean to Tali on so many levels.

"It is. It's unlikely I would find anything so…anything that would meet the expectations of…" Tali faltered, then stopped. "That is why I am asking. For my Pilgrimage…and the sake of my people."

Shepard bit her lip, glancing off to the screen that had previously held her attention, and then gave a heavy sigh. "I thought you might ask about this." There was no annoyance, or anything else, just resigned amusement at someone tired of being right.

"I have to ask. It could provide such insights into the geth," Tali pressed, "it could take years to process it all…but it could be the first step for my people towards regaining what we've lost."

Shepard sighed again, but did not spin out the silence. "The Alliance would nail my hide to their office door, but," she held up a hand before Tali could protest, using the other to open a drawer in her desk. She pulled from the drawer an OSD in a plastic case, and held it up. "But as a Spectre, I can do what I think is best."

Tali knew what she was asking when she requested a copy of this data, and she respected Shepard's position, wedged between two conflicting powers.

But Tali was a friend, and had put her life on hold without any oath of service. Shepard respected that, and giving Tali her Pilgrimage's 'gift' was the best 'thank you' she could think of.

Shepard held out the disk.

Tali took it, half disbelieving that the request and Shepard's acquiescence to it had gone off so easily. "Thank you, Shepard…this is a precious treasure for my people."

Shepard glanced over at the desktop, prodding it with a finger. "Home generally is. I'm glad to help you secure yours."

The words were so redolent with rueful nostalgia that Tali frowned, but she did not ask any questions about it. Some things were private, and she had enough details to know Shepard did not need reminders of unhappy, long-ago things.

-J-

For those interested in continuity and chronological order, the oneshot "_I Remember Me_" falls between this vignette and the next. It's not necessary to read it, but it makes the next chapter make more sense.


	142. Hold My Hand

For those interested, this chapter directly follows "I Remember Me", which is also available to read.

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard stared glassily out past the Citadel's ward arms and into empty space, wrung out and exhausted but unable to even think about heading back to the _Normandy_ for the night.

Alenko, relieved to have found her at all, called her twice by rank before hesitantly reaching for her shoulder. "Shepard?" Contrary to the last time he saw her, she looked like her day had suddenly nosedived. She seemed…diminished, not quite broken, but not well either.

Shepard dashed this notion by reacting suddenly, reaching for her pistol and pivoting to see who was there. The weapon remained in the holster. "You startled me." She gave the weapon a shove, settling it properly into place.

"Sorry." Alenko moved to lean on the wall, careful to give Shepard plenty of room.

Shepard went back to staring out into the expanse of emptiness before her, echoes of those last hours on Mindoir ringing between her ears, a cacophony to rival the usual buzz and hum of the Cipher. "You ever think I might want to be alone?" Well, since he was here…she supposed she wouldn't tell him to get lost.

Alenko knew if Shepard had meant this, she would have bristled. Something was sloshing around between her ears, and it wasn't anger. "Yeah—but I figured if you _really _didn't want to be found, you'd be way down in the Wards somewhere. You know?" True enough—the markets halfway between the wards and the presidium did not make for a great hideout. It was an odd place to go to be alone.

"You ever have a day when something you thought was done with came back and bit you?" Of course he had. It was why she did not mind him showing up to let her know she'd worried people by wandering off without a word.

"Yeah. A couple," Alenko answered honestly.

"I just had something come up that grabbed me by the neck and shook me around. I'll be all right…" she might have said more, but she cut herself off, with a curt shake of the head.

"You sure?" She didn't look all right. In fact, he could see why she wanted to be relatively alone. This was not a face she would want the crew to see. Fallibility in a leader generally shook the followers up.

"Yeah—I'm just not ready to go back to the _Normandy_."

"Okay." More silence. "You want to walk this off?"

Shepard ran a hand over her hair. Unexpectedly, a strange satisfaction at this concern and companionship flared before subsiding to warm coals. "I'm getting tired of staring out at nothing anyway."

They didn't go far, just far enough to find a bench. Sitting with her hands flat on the bench to either side of her, Shepard continued trying to shake her thoughts back into place.

After awhile, Alenko glanced over at Shepard. Something about her expression made her cheekbones seem to stand out more sharply than usual, giving her a gaunt, weathered sort of look. "Can I ask what this is all about?"

Shepard bit her lip. "Just…stuff in my head. You know?"

"Yeah, I know about that," Alenko sighed, fervently glad she hadn't responded with a sharp order to double-time himself back to the ship. Shepard gave the crew a lot of license when it came to formalities, but if she did not like the way something was going, she would let the individual in question know.

"They found a survivor. From Mindoir." She did not want to discuss it with just anyone…but Alenko was not just anyone. He knew about Mindoir in the same way she knew about BAaT.

Alenko blinked, opened his mouth to say something then stopped, checking himself.

"That's what I said." She licked her lips several times, assembling words. "Poor kid…they really messed her up…" The words were tempered by a headache which, while finally subsiding to something manageable, threatened to flare up if she got angry. And she didn't want to be angry—right now, it scared her.

Shepard's composure was so eroded, it wasn't hard for Alenko to see the play of emotions across her face. Even if he hadn't felt fondly towards her, one did not complete a mission blowing the gooey stuffing out of intergalactic zombies without learning to like someone…

It was one of those very rare times when the persona Shepard carried like a shield could no longer obscure the real-life human beneath.

Yes, it was horrible what had happened. Horrible that it had happened to anyone. But while the girl in question was probably being seen to…Shepard was out here, by herself. In more ways than one. The vulnerability stamped across her face, which she tried so desperately to hide, would have made people far more callous than Alenko want to help.

_If_ they knew what they were seeing.

"Commander…" She looked close to tears, but he suspected she might have already cried herself dry. He did not like seeing her like that, although he had to admit he wasn't sure what to do about it. "Can I…call you Jalissa?"

Shepard almost didn't register the use of her given name. Looking over at Alenko, she considered. "Just this once," she said softly, looking back towards the floor. "…Kaidan."

Carefully, he slipped his pinkie finger around hers, despite the fact she still gripped the edge of the bench. The suddenly disengaged digit closed over his.

What she really wanted was a shoulder to cry on. However, she'd cried herself dry hours ago. Now there was only a vague hollowness, finally intruded upon by the touch of another human being. "Thanks," she whispered, tightening her finger around his.

"Not a problem." As long as it helped.

Shepard scooted over on the bench, her shoulder bumping gently against Alenko's. She kept her eyes on the ground, as if expecting to be rebuffed. Alenko pulled his finger free of hers to close his hand securely over her cold fingers, squeezing her hand tightly in reassurance.


	143. Horror

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Timeframe: Wrapping up "UNC: Dead Scientists".

-J-

"Shut up," Shepard pointed at the scientist. Her skin crawled at the sight of him—another thing in this galaxy that had forfeited the right to call itself human. She agreed with Garrus' views about Saren, now applied to her own species: some people were simply a disgrace to the species, and the whole would be better off if these defects were culled out.

"Corporal Toombs?" His eyes slammed toward Shepard like a wrecking ball into a wall, from the N7 on her armor back to her face. Half of her hoped that being an N7, like Sheffler, might help her cause. Part of her was not so sure this would be the case. "Tell me what happened on Akuze, Corporal." It wasn't the usual demand for a status report—it was gentle, without cajoling. A tone that screamed 'I'm listening to what you're saying—I hear your words and will consider them'.

Toombs' weapon did not waver from his target, but his attention was clearly on Shepard, looking her over. "_They_ did it," he hissed, looking back at the scientist. "Cerberus did it! They _orchestrated it_! Set the signal right on the edge of the thresher nest! They _wanted_ us to land there! To see what would happen…" Toombs' sneer on the last word caused several beads of sweat to slide down the scientist's lined face.

Shepard's stomach trembled. Great, they had an insane scientist on their hands—and for once the sentiment smacked of no sarcasm, only a rising horror at the idea of deliberately landing soldiers on a thresher nest. She had seen enough of those creatures firsthand to know what kind of danger they represented.

The Mako could attest to it, as could quite a few of her crewmen.

Her eyes flickered to the scientist. If she did not owe it to Sheffler to save his surviving comrade, and if she believed shooting the doctor would bring Toombs the peace he thought it would, she would not be interfering now. However, she considered Sheffler a friend, and the doctor was still useful. Even if there was no undoing the horrors he wrought, no repentance for it until he was on the business end of someone's pistol, but he was useful: he might know where more people, people like Toombs, were.

She owed it to the survivors to find them, or at least give Sheffler enough information to find them. He would probably be able to get to them first. She had a mission, and knew that before the end she would have to sacrifice many for the good of the whole. Otherwise there would be no one left to save...

But right now, there was Toombs.

"…Commander Sheffler got out…but I didn't. They found me…they were delighted I'd survived…" Toombs' words were bitter, full of venom—which was ironic, considering his next words. "Have _you _ever had thresher maw acid in your veins?" Shepard's stomach turned, "I have. And for _what_?" The question seemed directed both at himself and at the doctor.

"Toombs, I know you want to do this…but I'm telling you, don't. It's not going to work out the way you…"

Would her tradition of negotiating best when both parties were armed hold up in a situation like this?

"Don't!" Toombs barked, his eyes flickering away from the scientist to Shepard's pale face. "Don't tell me what's working out how! You came out of Elysium with a few scratches and a scary reputation! My unit _died_! He's got to pay!"

Shepard's mouth went dry as Toombs' finger began to curl around the trigger. She had milliseconds in which to react. Was it enough time? "He does," the finger on the trigger relaxed, as she said the words Toombs wanted to hear, and what she personally believed. "But if you kill him, how many people are you condemning to what you suffered, because we don't know where to find them?"

For a long moment no one seemed to breathe. Toombs turned to face Shepard again, caught in her trap of moral dilemma. Revenge or saving reflections of himself? She was not sure it would work, but she had to try. She did not like the idea of shooting Toombs, but the time was rapidly approaching where she might need to.

She prayed it would not be necessary. She remembered how it felt, to find another Mindoir survivor, to get her somewhere safe, where she could get help. It had meant the world, surely this would be the same for Sheffler.

For a long moment Toombs stood irresolute. Shepard did not glance back, but wondered if, Alenko might be ready to hit Toombs with a biotic pulse. He was a smart man, he was probably just waiting for the signal. This was just like playing chicken, with everyone waiting to see who would flinch.

She felt it, the subtle touch of a boot toe against her heel. If it looked like she was not going to pull this off, Alenko was ready.

"He deserves to die," Toombs repeated, but a great deal of the rage was gone.

Shepard did not react. "He does, long and slow. But if there are others…he may know. We have to find them. Please, give me the gun." She held out her hand, lowering her own in the process.

Seconds seemed to tick by, taking an obscenely long time. Then Toombs' posture slackened; he lowered his pistol, and then held it out half-heartedly towards Shepard. She took it, with a mental exhale of relief. "Shepard to Normandy—send Dr. Chakwas and a security team."

Shepard eyed the doctor with disgust. "Williams, sequester this…_thing _somewhere." Somewhere she did not have to look at him. Shepard returned her pistol to its holster and jammed Toombs' into her web belt. "Alenko, stay with him," she added this in a quieter tone, as Toombs stood where he was, as though disconnected from the real world and wandering in the echoing recesses of his own mind.


	144. No Way Out

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Joker – I need to get a hold of Commander John Sheffler," Shepard sighed. Perhaps it was a bad move, perhaps not. But frankly, if it was one of her unit…she would want to know. Before the media plastered the 'miracle' all over the news.

"_You have his posting?" _

"Negative. Ask Fifth Fleet, I think he's out of there." Shepard's eyes fell on Cpl. Toombs, now sitting on a crate, deprived of his gun and, apparently, his will to act. "While you're at it, send Garrus down here." It was, perhaps, a little out of her jurisdiction, but right now…

…right now, the scientist was less than human; he gave up the right to be _counted _as human. And she was still treating him far better than he'd ever treated any of his 'patients'. Far better than he deserved.

Bastard. Her blood boiled, reminding her that what she wanted to do and what she should do sometimes really were two separate things.

-J-

Garrus hurried to report to Shepard, who stood in a hallway leading – though he did not know it – to where the scientist was sequestered. "Commander?"

"I need you to put your C-Sec hat on," Shepard declared coldly, her words carefully measured.

A shiver ran up Garrus' spine. She was in one of those moods; she was either extremely sad, or extremely angry—he would vote 'angry'. "What can I do?" She looked ready to shoot someone.

He understood that the prisoner had been neck-deep in galactic shit of the worst kind. Shepard's refusal to prune the galaxy of this undesirable obviously had nothing to do with her personal views in this case.

She was a _Spectre_: she could shoot this scientist and no one would have the right to complain. If she would just give herself free reign the galaxy would be a _much_ safer place. It would be easier to just cap some of these scumbags and be done with them. That way there was no escape, no early release, no parole.

He shook his head wondering if there was a way to train Shepard to be sensible about these things.

-J-

"Follow me." Shepard turned on her heel, striding down the hall, anger boiling in her stomach like so much acid. A million light years from where humanity began and wasn't life grand? In some ways they were the same now as ever, with regards to the gross mistreatment of fellow men.

It made her sick. On those days, she wondered if Garrus had the right idea. Maybe, once her stint with the Alliance was over, she should go into the mercenary business. She could see the benefit of being able to do things _her_ way...but she knew where that path lead.

Shepard palmed a door open nodding to Williams, who was grimly standing guard over the prisoner. Williams took her orders seriously: the scientist was not to leave the room, nor was anyone to go in without Shepard's approval.

Shepard entered the room silently.

Garrus followed in her wake, his eyes flickering from the jittery scientist to Shepard's almost geth-smooth movements. She radiated something Garrus could only call 'barely suppressed violence'. It unsettled him in a way he'd never felt unsettled by a human.

"I…" the doctor stopped, looking from the dispassionate Shepard to Garrus. This was _not_ a visit to find out his side of the story, or what he said was his side of the story. "Garrus. I want you to have a talk with this _individual_." Any more animosity in the word, and it would have fallen from Shepard's mouth, burning as it shed ash and cinders. "Whatever he knows about all this," she waved to the bunker but clearly meant the situation as a whole, "I want to know. All of it. It's important."

Garrus would have arched his eyebrows if he had any. "Yes?"

"Yes. Fifth Fleet will be picking him up in a few hours. Until then…he's all yours." Shepard's vivid eyes fell again on the doctor. "It's better you do it. Right now…I just want to shoot him. That's unprofessional."

No restrictions, no warnings about how they had to maintain a higher moral ground than the scumbags they dealt with. Shepard simply told him to find out what the doctor knew, and to do it in a timely fashion. Everyone _knew, _by now, that this doctor was responsible for things, things that meant something to Shepard, though no one was sure what.

"There's no way out of this," Shepard declared quietly, "I suggest you talk to Officer Vakarian. Start with," she directed at Garrus, "'Cerberus'."

Everyone was sure she had not served with the Akuze unit. The speculation was that she knew the man who had…though how she knew him was up for rumor.

Shepard walked out, thinking hard.

Until now, Cerberus was a thing of whispers, a vague suggestion of trouble. Most believed they were just a story cooked up by the brass for some inscrutable reason. Shepard had been one of those who ascribed to this theory.

Even though Saren was her focus, she did not want this Cerberus blindsiding her at some later date.

It would have been a waste to shoot the scientist, she knew that. Better she knew what he knew, so she could pass it along to Sheffler.

Spectre's privilege.

If she felt any unease by finally playing the Spectre card, it vanished in the anger over so many wasted lives, two of them shattered, by this group…Cerberus.

She could not issue the suggestion that Cerberus keep their heads down, lest she shove the _Normandy_ down their throats.

She'd simply make sure Sheffler knew what she knew, which would be everything the scientist back there knew.

Sheffler was a Spectre candidate. He'd know what to do. He probably had dreams of what he would like to do if he ever found the bastards responsible for Akuze.

She could, and would, give him that. There was no way out for this so-called scientist, not really.


	145. Fortitude

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Just in case anyone cares, as of the twenty-fifth of this month, Newton's First will have been in progress for a whole year!

-J-

Lt. Commander John Sheffler entered the complex with his own ground team, ready for a fight which was not forthcoming. He had made for Ontarom as quickly as possible, practically set a speed record to do it.

"Commander," Shepard saluted smartly. Sheffler had more time in rank than she.

"Commander," Sheffler saluted back, his thick eyebrows drawn together. She must have emptied out her ship to secure this complex. He saw the vessel on the way down, a great bird of prey. But that was not the issue at hand. The issue at hand was far more important than anything on his plate this week. This month. "Where is he?"

"This way." Shepard started off, her boots thudding dully on the floor. "Cpl. Toombs is a little upset we didn't let him shoot the ungood doctor. _He's_ in lockup, pending transfer to Fifth Fleet's custody. If you would…?"

"I'd have asked if you hadn't offered. We'll get him where he needs to go safely. After that…" Sheffler shook his head. There was no menace in the words, however much there ought to have been. He was a soldier and knew his duty. But if his time in service and personal history gave him any weight, he would throw it around as soon as he could.

"I'm glad you could get here before I had to alert the rest of Fifth."

"So am I." Sheffler fell into step with Shepard. Thank goodness it was Shepard who got here, and thank goodness she got here in time. She had given him a brief overview of the situation, and he agreed with her logic. If there were any others MIA, they needed to be brought home. And he was grateful her ability to negotiate had saved the life of his surviving teammate. "How…do you know how he survived?"

During the trip here, he had swung back and forth between wanting to know and not wanting to know. In the end, he decided he owed it to Toombs to hear his story, however unpleasant. Still, he did not want to go into that conversation cold, so the only other option was picking Shepard's brain.

Shepard considered only moment. "Yes. But it's not pretty."

"Nothing about Akuze was pretty," Sheffler murmured quietly, the scream of the thresher maws before they attacked echoing in the back of his mind, the shadows of them swaying on the sandy ground rumbling underfoot… "Tell me."

Shepard obeyed, giving a very short version, everything anyone had gotten out of Toombs.

"And the doctor?" Security precautions dictated that Shepard should lock him up somewhere safe and separate from Toombs. Shepard was smart enough to have checked for hidden weapons, gas-filled teeth, anything with which he could commit suicide. You could never tell with Cerberus, and Sheffler knew about Cerberus. His mission in life was Cerberus.

Or, rather, cutting off their heads wherever he could find them. They should have called themselves Hydra.

"He's with my C-Sec associate." The information Garrus had was sparse, sketchy. Cerberus was still a sketchy entity, a terrorist organization lumped in the same group as _Terra Firma_. Garrus was certain the doctor didn't know much to begin with. Apparently the cells worked almost independently of one another, with minimal contact between those working on the same issue. "I wanted to know if this has anything to do with my current mission."

Sheffler eyed Shepard, then his mouth became less of a straight line, but not by much. "Which is Spectre-speak for you wanting to know the full story, so Fifth can't water it down, make it nice for the news." Smart woman. She knew how to dance around political mechanisms like that, it was what made her—in his mind—the better candidate for the Spectres. He would have shut that al-Jilani woman down before the interview finished and made himself and humanity look bad. He had no patience for that sort of thing.

Shepard did not answer this directly. Neither she nor Sheffler was stupid. She was playing a dangerous game, but remained within the fringes of what was appropriate. Her Spectre status would—hopefully—cover her six. "As an Alliance officer, that's not something I should do." But they both knew she was doing it. "I'll send you a copy of my reports. All of them."

Sheffler closed his eyes, grateful for this. The unspoken understanding further indicated she would send him a copy of what the doctor had to say for himself as well. "All right, let me see Paul."

"I know you already know, but he's been through a lot." She felt obligated to say it.

"The man's got a lot of fortitude; he had to have, just to survive." But eventually, everyone ran out. He had run out, for a time, before falling back on more or less mindless conducting of business. Like a robot. Another reason he did not want to be a Spectre. It sounded like throwing a fellow N7 to the sharks, but she was a better appointment. He simply didn't want to do it; better her than him. "I'll be careful."

Shepard nodded again, and opened the door. "Corporal?" Toombs did not look over from where he sat hunched on a supply crate. "You've got a visitor." Shepard stepped aside so she did not block the entrance, letting Sheffler stride past her.

Toombs did not look up until he could see Sheffler's boots. He had barely spoken since Shepard disarmed him. Dr. Chakwas was worried, and checked on him morning and evening. It was as though the will to live, the fortitude to press on had finally been wrung out of him. "L-lieutenant…" Toombs' tone was caught between disbelief, dislike, and an unexpected surge of hope. Or something like hope. Shepard hoped it was. "What…what are you doing here?"

"Shepard told me she'd found you," Sheffler answered. "I came to bring you home."

Shepard let the door hiss closed. This was none of her business. None at all.


	146. Close

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Commander Shepard stood across from Commander Sheffler in one of the rooms of the science facility, where Cpl. Toombs finally had given up fighting the good fight. Personally, Shepard could see the man's actions as justified, if not legal—_someone_ had to do _something_ to bring scumbags like the doctor into the light, to hold them accountable for their actions.

The same thought which made the Torfan Massacre so abhorrent to her rattled around inside her head now: don't kill them all, see if there's anyone hidden or trapped somewhere.

After all, batarians and...animals...like this doctor could be killed any time. Best to know what they knew _first_. But the painfully logical breakdown brought Shepard no comfort. It would bring neither comfort nor peace to Toombs or to Sheffler.

"He's one lucky bastard," Sheffler announced quietly.

"Is he?" She could not see the doctor's trip back to Alliance space being a very pleasant one. She would call him extremely unlucky: his wrongs would get out, things like that did, and then he'd have a ship full of angry people keeping an eye on him.

"Yeah. If it were me…he wouldn't leave this rock alive."

Shepard nodded, but did not rebuke this bloodthirsty wish. She almost wished she could approve it. They were both, however, officers in the Systems Alliance military, and knew their duty even if it was not particularly palatable. And Sheffler did not have Shepard's experience with needing someone kept alive for the purpose of spilling guts. "I suppose you're right, he is lucky," Shepard agreed, looking at the tabletop as well.

Sheffler could hardly think about the doctor, now in the brig aboard his own ship, without his hands shaking. He did not consider himself an unstable person, but he'd finally found someone who made him feel that way. It took a great deal of restraint to keep away from the brig, and to keep his men—and himself—on a short leash where the doctor was concerned.

It all boiled down to Cerberus—more and more often. It worried him no small bit, the upswing in their activity. The nature of his mission being what it was, he could not ask all the questions he would have liked.

"Still, I'm glad Toombs survived." That was one more survivor, worth the irritation the doctor caused Sheffler's very soul, and the expected trek back home with that irritating presence aboard. Part of him wondered if anyone else had made it…but no. He could not believe in that hope, though if he was wrong, he'd be glad of it. Still, two survivors were two survivors. He only wished they could have found Toombs sooner.

Maybe it was just as well, as his targets were all Cerberus scientists. If it were innocent people, that was one thing…but the galaxy could afford to be short a few of the doctor's sort of people.

"So am I." Exceedingly so. At her request, (and if Sheffler asked any questions in that direction) no one present was mentioning how delicate the situation was, precisely, or how close Shepard suspected the incident had come to going badly.

For a few horrible moments, she thought Toombs was going to discard her words, shoot the doctor, then shoot himself. Or try to.

But he didn't, she reminded herself firmly, he did not, and everything panned out all right, at this stage, anyway. The bloodbath never happened, and if she spent time dwelling on every what-if, she would never get anything done.

Sheffler nodded slowly. The worrisome discomfort settling over him about the care exercised in the planning of the Akuze Incident did nothing to improve an already poor mood.

It was similar, _too_ similar to the events of a few weeks ago…

For a moment a bitter swell of resentment over the irony choked Sheffler. This time, he and his small team survived the landing by the thresher nest with only scored vehicle plates, bumps and bruises, while _last _time he lost his entire…almost entire…unit? It was a sick interpretation of the old saying that 'practice makes perfect'.

Sheffler forced his thoughts back to his subordinate, safely installed aboard ship, to be conducted home. Here was something, Toombs would hopefully find some closure. There was something else: he, _Sheffler_, could find some closure. A closing of the chapter where he was best known for being a sole survivor.

Part of him was certain few people, if any, would ever know about a second survivor. The Alliance had its good points, but when it came to recruiting gimmicks, they tended to show an inclination not far removed from a politician on the election trail.

Well, that scarcely mattered. He had one more reason to hunt Cerberus, and thank goodness such was his job to begin with. Someone had to track down these crazies. If it weren't for Shepard's priority broadcast he would be nearing his next destination, continuing his investigations on behalf of Admiral Kahoku.

Sheffler knew what he would find. The question was whether or not he would find anything _useful_ mixed in. Somehow he doubted it; even with little proof to the contrary, he could not write Cerberus off as a scattered, poorly organized band of people 'playing' at secret society. The sterility of his previous findings thus far was too perfect; someone was hiding _something_, and he intended to find out what.

"Do you think Toombs will be all right, once you get him back to port?"

Shepard's voice pulled Sheffler out of his musing. "I'm not a psychologist." He prodded the table with a thick finger. "He may find some closure, after awhile."

To anyone else the conversation might sound somewhat clichéd, even contrived. To the participants, however, it was honest and on the level. "Well, this is pleasant," Shepard pushed her chair back, "but I think we're both spoiling to get on with our jobs."

Sheffler got quickly to his feet. They were marines in the Traverse: there was always another in queue.


	147. Two Roads

Beta-read by Saberlin.

I hope those who observe it had a happy Fourth of July!

-J-

Shepard eyed the twisted little salarian—and she was not commenting on his physical attributes. This Dr. Saleon, a thorn in Garrus' side, lived up to her expectations of him. He was a slimy, cringing, shifty little ferret. He thought he was so clever, when in reality he had just hit a brick wall.

It was not about Saleon, however, that Shepard was here—though he was undoubtedly on the list, somewhere right below his patients…experiments? Victims. This was about Garrus. She saw a good deal of herself in the turian, though she would not like to admit it out loud.

Garrus would like nothing more than to blow Saleon away, to forcibly, proactively prevent him from performing any more of his sick, twisted work. In a way, Shepard saw the logic and approved. People like Saleon were scumbags, and in Saleon's case it was obvious he was not going to give up his bloody trade. If he was, he would have, as clearly he had not.

Saleon was expendable, but not at the price levied if she let Garrus shoot him. This was a practical lesson, because the turian had potential. He had real potential to do exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to make a difference, and he was one of those sentients blessed with the faculties to do so, _if_ he went about things in the right fashion.

She, of all people, knew that killing the enemy, those who hurt you, did not assuage the pain. If anything—and perhaps it depended on personality—it made it worse. One kept fighting and killing in hopes of dulling the pain, without ever considering why it kept getting worse.

And then one day one looked in the mirror and failed to recognize oneself. She had had nightmares like that, off and on, for years. She had hated Robbins at the time for forcing her to make a choice as to which road she wanted to follow, but had accepted the wisdom of it eventually.

And acceptance of it begot gratitude.

"No," Shepard reached up calmly, pushing Garrus' arm to ruin his aim. "Don't shoot him."

"What? Shepard, he's just going to keep doing what he's doing! Or he'll slither out of C-Sec like a heel!"

"Eel."

Garrus refused to be side-tracked.

"Shoot him here, and only a few people know he's dead. Haul him back to C-Sec in chains and those people he's hurt will get a little closure." Saleon was not as squiggly as Garrus seemed to think. He would wriggle out of a tight spot, but a tight spot was not actually being caught.

Besides, she had a feeling she knew how this was going to pan out.

-J-

Garrus' mandibles pulled tight to his chin he tried to raise his pistol, pushing against Shepard's hand. He looked the salarian in the eyes, aware that Shepard was exerting her considerable force of personality. He let his arm drop. "You are one very lucky salarian," he growled, bristling.

And people called _him_ idealistic. Shepard had no idea what C-Sec was like. It was better in the long run to kill Saleon now. He might go to jail, but he would probably get out again and then what? He'd start over and Garrus would be forced to run him down _again_.

Why waste the energy and shattered lives from the repeat performance?

"You owe the commander your _life_." Not that the words would mean anything to the little worm.

"Oh, thank you ever so much…" the salarian bowed, almost cringing.

Garrus rolled his eyes, and made to turn and leave Shepard to her salarian wrangling. He only saw the ensuing events out of the corner of his eye. The doctor was not out of his cringing bow when the pistol appeared in his hand. He managed to free the concealed weapon from its holster before Shepard's pistol was in her hand and barked one note of finality.

The doctor hit the ground, bleeding green from a shot to the head. At this range Shepard could scarcely have missed. And through the corner of his eye, Garrus saw her expression had not flinched, twitched, or otherwise changed.

She jammed the pistol into its holster. "We'll radio the Citadel; C-Sec can come collect _that_. Or not."

"Now what was the point of all that, if you were just going to shoot him?" Garrus scowled. His surprise did not show: he had thought Shepard too much of an idealist…but an idealist would not have freed her weapon that fast.

She was _ready_ for this outcome.

"The point is, we gave him the chance. He opted not to take it. We can't control what others do, but we can control how we respond."

"But you _knew_ he was going to turn on us," Garrus gestured irritably.

"I _suspected_, that's completely different." Shepard's response was even, calm. "It's the difference between you, and a trigger happy lunatic. And it's the difference between me and people like Rogers."

Garrus did not know who Rogers was, but assumed the individual was extremely low in Shepard's books.

He had heard these speeches before, but never quite like Shepard spoke it. It was the ring of personal experience, perhaps even of trial and error. They were the words of someone who knew where he was, from having been there herself. The situations might not be the same, but similar enough to give her insight.

"I've heard all this before," Garrus grumbled, though milling over the words. "Repeatedly."

-J-

Shepard shrugged as though to say 'I tried', but did not seem perturbed. "Okay, a little food for thought: '_two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and it has made all the difference_,'" she quoted, before patting Garrus on the shoulder. "Take the high road, Garrus. Trust me."

She had come to her own divergent roads many years ago, and while the high road was hard she did not regret her decision.

-J-

Credit where it's due: quote by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken".


	148. The Call

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Now, don't go rubbing it in." Shepard crossed her arms, leaning on the back of one of the chairs in the briefing room.

"Me?" Garrus let his mandibles fall slack as if in surprise. A human as astute as Shepard had probably picked up that things like surprise and humor all involved flaring mandibles, while emotions like anger and deep thought involved a pulling-in of mandibles.

"Do you see any other turian hotshots in this room?" Shepard arched her eyebrows, a funny quirk of the human race: they tended to use their eyebrows for lots of expressions. Those mobile features…it took getting used to. Asari had mobile features, but they didn't have eyebrows. I t had only become fashionable to paint or tattoo them (in replication of the human characteristic) after the Relay-314 incident. "Because if you know something I don't, please, enlighten me. I don't think you take competition lightly."

Garrus drew himself up. "If you wanted to _replace_ me, you'd have done it. Who'd you fill my spot with? A sneaky, slinky assassin?"

Shepard's features contorted in thought. "…that come with or without custom-painted armor?"

"Depends on what you were looking for, but I didn't think you were the type to go xeno."

"Now, Garrus, I wouldn't talk like that," Shepard answered in mock reproof. "Joker—who's probably listening right now—might think you were _flirting_ with me."

Garrus let off a bark of laughter. They had a good dynamic, so the teasing did not cause him to so much as blink. "Even if I _did _have some kind of weird human fetish," it was Shepard's turn to let off a bark of laughter, "you're at the _bottom_ of the list."

"Now that you're serious, how about we make that call?" She walked over to the terminal through which she would route it.

Sneaky…_this_ was the personification of sheer cunning. That was why, if for some strange reason he ever took interest in humans, he would never consider Shepard. She was a good friend, a good comrade, and a person whose advice he could trust…

…but he didn't want to know whether she crossed the line from 'good at maneuvering others' into 'downright manipulative'. He had to wonder what her intentions with this call actually were, but he didn't get past wondering.

"This is Commander Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. Please find out if Executor Pallin is available for a brief conference."

Garrus' mandibles trembled. Here they went, here was what he had spent years waiting for: it was the opportunity to tell Pallin this freak show was finally out of people's misery…

…and it was his own—Saleon's—fault. Not Garrus' itchy trigger talon. Not a human circumventing rules or regs. Everything by the book.

…and he was _right_. Justified. Even Pallin couldn't argue against that.

"Watch it, cowboy," Shepard murmured during the moment of being on hold.

He made a mental note to look up 'cowboy'—anything that could amuse Shepard like that was liable to be interesting…if not exactly amusing. Didn't humans call a male bovine a bull? Or an ox? He was _definitely_ the former, if he had the right line of reasoning…and he thought he might.

"Commander Shepard. This is _most_ inconvenient." Pallin appeared as a hologram at the FTL terminal.

"I understand, Executor, and I appreciate you making time for me. We'll endeavor to keep this brief."

"'We'? I take it our lost little pyjak is still hanging around."

Garrus bristled. _Pyjak!_

"I keep a close eye on who and what is part of my crew and I can assure you, Executor we have no such stowaways at present. Former Officer Vakarian does, however, have a good citizen call to make, and I felt it my duty as a law-abiding sentient to make sure he had the availability of a channel." With that she stepped off the capture pad in the floor, leaving Executor Pallin with no visual.

Her expression indicated clearly that Garrus had better keep himself civil, but he did not need the warning. As soon as he presented himself in front of Pallin a cheese-eating smile—to quote one of the garage's crewmen—spread across his face. "Executor."

"Vakarian junior."

He was still miffed. Garrus had no doubt that his father had gone straight to Pallin to drink and bemoan the unsatisfactory nature of his son resulting in a long-term stint on Pallin's shitlist. It did not ruffle him, or rather he did not let it ruffle him. "I'm calling to inform you that Dr. Saleon, alias Dr. Hart, is out of the black-market organ business." It was impractical, really, to expect Pallin to remember every case, even the ones that did not close satisfactorily. Technically, Saleon's was still open, though cold.

"Joker, tag the _Fedele_'s coordinates onto this message," Shepard dictated quietly in the background. Pallin would not hear her, but Garrus did.

Pallin consulted his terminal before speaking. "Really?"

"We're patching you the coordinates of his ship—and corpse—now."

"Corpse? Is that suppose to impress me? You haven't picked up a grain of sense, I see."

"No collateral damage and you'll find, if you do a crime scene reconstruction, that Commander Shepard acted in self defense."

"Oh, so this isn't _your_ handiwork after all…"

The goad didn't work, and it probably surprised Pallin that it didn't. "Job done right, case is closed, and the galaxy's a safer place. Doesn't matter who popped the bastard." It didn't, oddly enough. Shepard's instruction after the fact still had him thinking, but on the whole as long as Saleon was dead—and he was there to witness it—he did not care who pulled the trigger. "I'm reporting in, as any good citizen should. Thank you for your time, Executor." Garrus reached towards the terminal and severed the connection.

When Garrus turned around he found himself alone in the briefing room, left to his own devices without observation, supervision, or censure. There was no one looking over his shoulder.


	149. Empty Plate

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Williams eyed the turian towering over her, unafraid. Why should she be afraid? This was an old, old quarrel, the only difference between then and now were the faces and the situation.

Turian vs. human, round…had anyone _really_ kept count? Just call this another tiebreaker and be done with it.

Shepard, still sitting at the table, waiting for a waiter to come take the orders, smirked blandly. Clearly she, Williams, was on her own...

_Why_ was it every time she went somewhere, someone wanted to pick a fight, or try to? It had to be the armor—a human walking around in a protective shell on the Citadel seemed to be some kind of challenge.

She doubted asari commandos would have so much trouble. And asari looked like blue, tentacle-scalped humans. She cut this line of thinking before it got rude.

-J-

Shepard was not surprised when Williams ran into trouble. No one wanted to hear it, but as far as she was concerned the Citadel was just like anywhere else. The elite lived it up, covering the locale's nastiness with whitewash and bright lights. Everywhere else it was business as usual; thugs, drugs, weapons, goons, the list was endless. The only difference between the Citadel and the Traverse was the lack of a strong batarian presence.

She was sure the Council would want to execute her for suggesting the Citadel was no better than anywhere else in the galaxy. They seemed like they would get touchy if such a comment was ever made about their crown jewel of galactic everything.

This was what she got for following Williams to 'the best dim sum you ever ate'. Not that she minded—it was amusing to watch the dinner show—and she was not entirely sure what dim sum _was_. It sounded like something Alenko might like, with his leaning towards Asian foods. Well, a mom from Singapore? That had to affect one's palate.

-J-

Williams was not surprised to see the turian here. Even places that catered to human palates tended to have alternatives for the dextro crowd. In fact, she suspected dim sum was one of those dishes that crossed boundaries far easier than others.

Frak the turians, Williams thought grimly (though in the back of her mind she realized Garrus was, at least, safe from the sentiment. He was decent...for a turian). And she _would_ run into the one of the older crowd, still smarting from the First Contact War. What was the bet they showed up _just _to piss her off—to paraphrase the drill instructors.

"You ever see a marine kill a guy with an empty plate?" Williams asked casually, shifting the plate so the harsh overhead lighting shifted over the surface. "It can be done. It _has_ been done, right Skipper?" She glanced back at Shepard, who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself.

"She once had a batarian laugh at about this point," Shepard corroborated earnestly, but with such a nasty smile hardly anyone could have doubted her words, "he's not laughing now. I'd walk away before this gets ugly, but that's just me."

"Mm-hm," Williams nodded, eyeing the turian's throat. Exaggeration? Maybe, but they might not realize that. Turians and humans trained differently, but that did not mean turians automatically won in a fistfight. "Break the glass, and go for the jugular. Now, I don't know much about _turian_ anatomy, but if I take a sharp edge to _your_ throat…well, we all bleed, we just bleed different colors." Williams' affable smile faded, leaving a predatory look on her face that brooked neither argument nor defiance. "Now pay your tab and _go_. I'm done with this." She threw herself into a chair, crossed her knees and arms, and gazed up, nonplussed.

She did not like sitting there, with the turian who had started this contention towering over her. "You're blocking the waiter Move out, birdman." Williams, gazing into those beady green eyes, reached for her water.

Then, with some nasty comment that did not translate perfectly—the flow of coherent words from her translator broken up by a resonant growling rumble—it was over. She lifted her drink as though in a toast, but did not respond.

"You know," Shepard noted as Williams turned in her seat to face her, "You're _nasty_ when you're tired."

"I am," Williams agreed. And she thought marine life was hard before she joined the _Normandy_. She knew better. She now knew her ideas about shipside postings were just about as idealistic as those people who watched vids about brave soldiers or Spectres out in the galaxy blowing things up.

There _were_ lots of explosions, but the hours were long and hard, the slugs incoming were plentiful, and the amount of time spent waiting either for something to start, or something to finish wore on the nerves. However, when they were not waiting to go into danger (or for an opportune moment to get out of it), life was pleasant. "Now, let's do something about this empty plate."  
"You know what else empty plates are good for?" Shepard asked innocently, examining her own. It seemed too much like something from the vids to have a fight break out in a restaurant out of pettiness and chips on shoulders. To be fair, Williams was hardly a victim in this case. However, Williams had not started the fight, which left Shepard more than happy to back her up, if need be.

"No, what?" Williams waved a waiter over, quite sure the woman was waiting to make sure the fight was really over. Well, Williams thought sourly, the turian was _gone_. How could it continue? She corrected herself quickly, not everyone was tough as nails, and not everyone wanted to get caught between two people who were.

"Frisbees."

Williams gave Shepard an 'oh, come on' look, but the idea had merit—but only if one was in a place with standard issue food. "Too bad you didn't mention it earlier. That'd be something to see."


	150. Keeping a Secret

Beta-read by Saberlin.

For those who haven't read C&E, the chapter 'Dreams' has some bearing on this chapter, if you're interested.

-J-

"All right…Alenko? Hand me my pistol case, would you?" Shepard asked offhandedly, tightening Liara's web gear. The asari had never gone on a ground mission, and had only recently been outfitted through the Spectre requisitions office.

As Liara was such a novice, Shepard insisted she wear Alliance-fashion web gear. If the asari would just hold still and stop her fidgeting, she might get this cinched in a little more comfortably…

Alenko, upgrading his shield battery, leaned over to peer into Shepard's locker, a crease appearing between his brows. Two pistol cases…he grabbed the first one he touched—being left-handed it was the leftmost—and frowned more pronouncedly. It was light…too light.

Popping it open, his eyebrows rose up his forehead before knitting together in confusion.

"Hold _still_," Shepard commanded firmly.

Liara squeaked as Shepard yanked on a strap, cinching the gear in so tightly, she could feel the constriction through her armor.

The pistol case contained a pair of very old, very unworn pink toe shoes, the ribbons folded meticulously. A stranger place to find something so strange he had never seen…except he couldn't quite squash the notion that since the ever-organized Shepard kept all her 'dangerous' items in once place…she must consider these dangerous, somehow, as well.

Why he could not guess. But the idea of Shepard and toe shoes was like…Williams wearing the getups you saw on some of those Citadel asari. Not impossible just…it would be _strange_.

-J-

"Alenk…" Shepard stopped, looking back over her shoulder ready to take the pistol. Alenko was looking into one of the cases—the one she recognized as containing her dancer's shoes. Her heart fell into her stomach, and she stifled a groan. Alenko could have walked in on her stark naked after a shower and she would not have felt as exposed as she did right now_._

No one would pick up the light case, which obviously had something in it, without opening it. She would have. This was the point at which her sanity and mental stability would begin to be called into question. She just knew it.

Stepping across the bench very quickly, Shepard closed the case, and swapped it out for the other, not meeting Alenko's eyes. It did not stop him from seeing her expression, a pained, arrested look.

Liara frowned, sensing something in the atmosphere changed Alenko went back to work, unruffled, but Shepard's demeanor was so painfully neutral it was…well, _painful_.

-J-

It was late, just before Shepard needed to start thinking about going to bed when she finally went to see Alenko, who sat playing solitaire in a quiet corner of the mess.

"You mind?" She shifted uneasily, wishing she did not feel so awkward. She was twenty-nine for crying out loud. It had _nothing_ to do with Alenko in this instance, and _everything_ to do with someone seeing a facet of sentimentality unexpected in her.

"Go ahead," Alenko watched Shepard sit down, her posture a bit stiff, her brows knitted together. Evidently, she was caught between scowling fiercely in concentration and a desire not to put his back against the wall.

"You…" she could not breech the subject herself. She did not know how to start. It was such a long-kept secret, and she did not know how to let anyone in. But she did not want to leave the matter as an item of curiosity. Alenko would never gossip, but she found she would prefer him to know than not. Maybe part of her hoped he would understand…as much as someone who did not understand from firsthand experience could. The same way she understood about Brain Camp. "You wanted to ask me about the slippers."

"I do." Alenko nodded, carefully watching the way her hands fidgeted, discreetly. "But I won't." It was not his place to ask, or to draw conclusions, past the ones he had drawn at the time. He had not permitted himself to think on it or puzzle over. It was her business, her secret apparently, and it was not his place to search for answers or explanations.

A sensation, soothing like warm oil, dripped over her soul. No questions, no guesses, no prying; it made giving an explanation easier. Whatever she said would be taken at face value, whatever she said would be enough.

"After the batarians came…" Alenko's stomach grew leaden, not just because she was speaking about Mindoir. Shepard shook her head. "After I enlisted, I put all my dreams in that case. And put the case where dangerous things belong." She finished briskly, unable to articulate completely the symbolic nature of the shoes in the case.

Alenko reached across the table, resting his hand just close enough that he could touch the back of hers, barely a brush of fingers.

She did not flinch, but she did look up, an echo of someone who knew what it was to be lost darkening her eyes. "I don't think I've ever told anyone else that. I don't think anyone else has _seen_ them." Not even O'Conner, her best friend. "I…I wanted to be a dancer, once…" Which was the only way she could explain the physical shape of those burned and broken dreams.

He wanted to promise he wouldn't say a word about this, that it was a unique, almost artistic way of symbolizing shattered dreams—but that would be unwise. This was not a matter for discussion.

Though this subject was worth a lot of penalty push-ups for thinking of his CO as an attractive, fascinating woman, and not an officer or a Spectre.

He could imagine her as a dancer, too. She was not necessarily graceful on the battlefield—combat was not a place for grace—but it was not hard to imagine her as a dancer. He patted the back of her hand reassuringly before picking up his cards and withdrawing from her presence.

Showing someone the shattered pieces of old dreams couldn't be easy; this topic did not leave easy silences in its wake.


	151. Humor

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Sorry for the erratic updates: classes are getting to me.

-J-

"I…I guess _this_ is what it means to go commando…?" Liara asked, voice high pitched as the gunfire died. Were Prothean artifacts really worth this much? She began to wonder.

Shepard choked, nearly jerking the trigger on her shotgun before whipping her head around.

Liara could not see Alenko's face, but Shepard could: he was crimson. Not from embarrassment or a guilty conscience, but from repressing howls of laughter as the innocent comment filtered through the marine mind.

-J-

Three hours later Liara sat at her terminal, ignoring the recovered datadisc. Shepard had, helpfully, given her the search words most likely to tell her _why_ Alenko looked ready to blow out his eardrums…

…but the look on the Commander's face when suggesting searches was _not_ reassuring.

Liara screwed up her mouth, frowning at the screen as she keyed in her search. Studiously, she began scanning down the columns of results.

With every second, she wished more and more that she had stayed here in the medlab, and let the commandos—_soldiers—_do their thing.

With every gram of understanding of her verbal _faux pas_, she was grateful that Lt. Alenko was such a gentleman.

And with every word she read she knew Commander Shepard would _not_ put the story of the mis-worded sentiment around. It would stay an inside joke.

And while Liara would have once jumped to be part of an inside joke…this was one she could have lived without.

She put her head in her hands with a groan.

-J-

When Liara slipped out of the medbay at supper time, she found herself looking straight at Alenko, who was just sitting down across from Shepard and Williams. In true Alenko fashion, he smiled and held up a hand in greeting before settling down.

Liara turned a brilliant shade of purple just at the sight of him. Unable to block out her newfound knowledge, she practically bolted back into the medbay, so fast, one would think she had been biotically thrown.

Shepard and Alenko shared a look.

On Alenko's side, he gave a perfectly innocent 'what was _that _all about?' look_. _They'd come back several hours ago, and he'd filled most of those hours with his usual duties. Additionally, he would have died before explaining to Liara—kid that she was—what, exactly her innocent choice of words connoted to in the world of humanisms.

On Shepard's side was a rather guilty smirk…

If he had not known, in a blinding instant, _exactly _why she was smirking like that, he might have taken a moment to secretly speculate. It was very close to her 'go kill it' look… "You _told_ her, didn't you?" he asked, trying not to smile. He was not laughing at Liara—it was impossible to laugh at a kid like that. It was amazing she never got lost at her own dig sites. Making fun of the kid would be almost criminal. "I'm appalled!" But he smiled anyway. It was simply situational humor.

Shepard opened her eyes wide, retorting with, "You're not _Paul_."

Williams snorted, choking on her noodles. It was, after all, a very old retort.

"That was almost _cruel_, Shepard."

This time Shepard looked genuinely shocked—though Alenko did not believe it for a moment. "I may have suggested she look it up, but think about if I _hadn't_. Would _you_ want that sweet, innocent kid back there to say something like _that_ in _other_ company? Like…Joker's?" She breeched her fruit juice. "Or a couple of those tech-heads in engineering?"

Alenko closed his mouth and pressed his teeth firmly together.

"I knew _someone_ was listening in on those nasty, _nasty _rumors." Williams murmured in a singsong tone both officers pretended to ignore.

"It was _kinder_ this way," Shepard continued, "I knew there was a reason the Alliance doesn't like minors on a frigate."

"So…what brought _this_ conversation on? And what did Liara say now?" Williams asked.

Shepard and Alenko both dropped the joking manner like a cat dropping a joy buzzer. "Commander says loose lips sink ships. Sorry Chief," Alenko answered so mechanically it caused Shepard to falter for one single, very obvious, moment.

"…Members of Parliament, I have no knowledge of those events to which you are referring. Got another few years before that declassifies." Shepard recovered herself. It was not like Alenko to pass the buck like that. However, when she glanced over at him, pleased to find him in a—by Alenko standards—vivacious humor, he winked at her.

Shepard grabbed her juice, chugging it to hide her rather pleased smile.

He was getting bold, that one.

The thought nearly made her choke.

-J-

"Commander?" Shepard followed Liara's quiet call from the medbay door, from which an anxious blue face peered.

"Yes?" Shepard stepped into the medbay, door closing behind her.

"I…apologize for my ill-chosen…" Liara turned purple until she began looking like a blueberry. "My inappropriate…"

Shepard crossed her arms, thinking hard about how to explain this. "You know what? We marines…can make almost anything sound dirty. It's not part of the job description, but we wind up doing it sooner or later. You didn't say anything _wrong_—it's just that our minds dropped into the gutter. We would _never_ make you the butt of a joke."

"When I was your age—relatively speaking," Liara nodded as Shepard paused, committing herself to reliving a mild embarrassment, "I figured it would be cool to meet a male asari."

Liara opened her mouth.

"You can laugh: ignorance is funny." Shepard's serious expression broke. Once Liara let off a few giggles, Shepard continued, "Would you _ever_ repeat that to anyone?"

"No…just no."

"Same here: Alenko and I _know_ you are the _last_ person who would make any kind of commentary on the state of anyone's…underwear."

Inspired by the invocation of Alenko, Liara tried a little intentional humor. "Or lack thereof."

Suddenly, she was no longer the only one with uncomfortable things on her mind: Shepard's drift pulsed brilliant scarlet, eyes flicking to the medbay door.


	152. Dark Thoughts

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Locale: Voyager Cluster, Amazon System, Agebinium

Timeframe: during the UNC: Espionage Probe, after Haliat puts the mineshaft into lockdown.

-J-

Alenko and Garrus exchanged looks over Shepard's head, but she had eyes only for the projection of Elanos Haliat. "Stay put, Haliat," her voice came out low, almost guttural as she pointed a warning finger at his hologram. "I'll be right there."

Shepard did not give in to the cold fury trying to pulse in her mind. First came the bomb. Business first, even in situations like this. She could not do anything about Haliat if she let him blow her up. "Let's do what we came here to do," she strode over to the bomb, with Garrus and Alenko in tow.

Something in Shepard's posture and tone had changed. This 'something' made both the human and the turian profoundly glad it was not directed at them.

"Substandard hunk of junk, isn't it? Can you believe we used to use this crap?" But Shepard's voice did not seem to belong to herself. All those years of hating batarians, of seeing them only as mindless husks, like geth in organic masks, seemed to bubble right back up, filling her entire being with a cold so profound it burned...except Haliat wasn't a batarian, but that tiny detail did not matter. Not really.

If she stopped to investigate her own feelings, she would have realized she was blaming Haliat for her entanglement in the Saren/Reaper situation just as much as for all the people on Elysium who didn't survive the fighting. No, not just as much, a tiny, unbiased part of her corrected: at this moment she blamed him for her current overall situation.

"Commander," Garrus began, "I'm not familiar…"

"Then step back."

-J-

Even in the yellow light of the chem-torches, anyone with eyes could see Shepard was white to the lips, her hands steady, her expression set in a cold parody of analytical, well-organized thought. He did not believe it. This was not the professionalism Shepard usually exhibited. This was something else, something ugly. A once-wounded animal, now healed and strong, suddenly face to face with its tormentor.

So this was what it looked like when Shepard got emotionally involved in something. Garrus gripped his sniper rifle as the two humans worked. If Haliat stepped into the rifle's range, Garrus knew he could put the creep in a black bag. The question was, how much would Shepard resent it? Looking at her face as she stepped across the bomb to take over where he left off, he decided not to take the shot, if it presented itself.

The crux of the problem gave Garrus something to ponder: Shepard adhered to law and order…even when it hurt. How would killing Haliat fall into that paradigm? He could see the difference between this situation and the one with Dr. Saleon: in this situation, the name was simply another reason for Shepard to want to stop a madman. It would be the same of Haliat turned out to be a guy named Gus.

-J-

Alenko looked away as Shepard gave a grimly delighted 'ha' before standing up, her omni-tool deactivating. "Commander?" This was not a side of Shepard he was used to seeing, and he now believed what she once said about who she used to be: an angry person with a vendetta against anyone and anything that came out of the Terminus Systems, batarians in particular.

"I'm in my right mind, I _assure_ you," Shepard answered calmly. She had to remind herself, though, that were their positions reversed, she would have asked the same question. It was part of his job to do so—but she also knew it was not because of the job that he was asking.

"I didn't imply that you weren't."

Shepard turned to face him, still unruffled. Her expression did not soften, nor did the fire behind her eyes quench. "I know what you meant, Alenko. I'd tell you to relax, but seeing as I've been invited to a firefight…let's get out of here."

She was angry, not stupid, that had to count for something. Her very answer highlighted the rigid restraint holding her emotions in check. Alenko knew, in that moment, that he did not want whoever came up with the bright idea to raid Mindoir anywhere near Shepard.

For her sake.

"You ever see her like this?" Garrus asked, once he was sure Shepard would not hear.

Alenko heaved a sigh, wishing Garrus would button his beak. "I don't think anyone's seen her like this."

"It's a good attitude for a Spectre to have." A galactic law keeper, Shepard was finally starting to live up to the Spectre image…and she did it without violating her advice to him. Quite an accomplishment, Garrus thought.

-J-

If anyone had asked Shepard, she would have pointed out that Garrus' assessment was flawed. This may have had something to do with personal demons, but it began—and ended—as some crook with a chip on his shoulder waylaying an Alliance detachment. It was a skirmish like any other—even if she had a personal stake in it.

With that logic Shepard could comfort herself, should this end up giving her sleepless nights. As much as she would like to lash out and punish the individual responsible for Elysium…she had to honor her calling, and make sure her actions followed her instructions to Garrus.

She was human: she had every reason to be angry, but she kept it restrained, forced it to be cold, rather than the hot 'do something stupid' angry.

She wondered who would believe the after action reports—this was an elaborate trap, after all—but decided she did not care. Haliat moving a nuke because he knew she was in the area—and every word he spoke indicated he'd sunk a lot of credits into contriving this very elaborate trap—in order to take revenge on the person responsible for his fall from prominence?

It sounded too far-fetched.

Shepard did not batter back the dark thoughts assailing her mind as Garrus called out that he'd found a possible alternate exit.


	153. Slug

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

With Alenko and Garrus as backup, the fight with Haliat's crew did not last long. The shock that the marines had escaped, and brought the fight back for round two went a long way towards shortening the duration.

Shepard and Haliat's fight was a moving battle to begin with, but Haliat quickly found himself faced with an enemy he could not seem to kill. An invading army of criminals, a nuclear device he _thought_ was wired to go off _no matter what_, and she just kept coming.

Even if Haliat opted to retreat, to lick his wounds and come after her at a later date—or maybe just blow her ship out from under her—he could see the capital expended to kill Shepard slipping away. The numbers were adding up, and there were far too many zeros for his liking.

A misstep as rock turned to sand sent Haliat spilling over the edge of the low, rocky plateau upon which the camp was situated. As rock turned to sand, his footing slipped. He tumbled all the way to the foot of the plateau, onto relatively level sand.

-J-

Shepard expected him to run. Thugs of his class—which was to say no class at all, but with big ambitions and cash to burn—were predictable. They were usually cowards at heart. They claimed 'discretion as the better part of valor'—if they could use such large words—but the fact was they were just _scuttling away_. Most would lick their wounds and choose a weaker target next time.

She did not intend to give Haliat that option. The only way he could win was to surrender.

Shepard caught him hurrying off, but did not plant a slug between his shoulders. This was not a job she could end in such a fashion. She changed her shotgun for her sidearm, sliding in the sand but not falling, closing the distance between Haliat and herself. Her first shot went wide as the sand gave underfoot, twisting her aim.

Haliat turned, squeezing off two rounds, both of which slammed into Shepard's shields, but not into Shepard herself. He stopped running, knowing she would eventually run him into the ground. He eyed Shepard, who advanced a few steps—cocky, he thought, so cocky. Her victory at Elysium had certainly inflated her ego…

Shepard stopped well back, breathing hard, but by no means at her limit.

"What are you waiting for?" Haliat demanded, glancing at his pistol. "If you've got something to say, say it now!"

_Boom_. Shepard leveled her pistol and let off one round. It slammed into Haliat's shoulder. "What do you know?" she mumbled to herself, "I missed..."

Her shields were better, her armor was better, she could afford to take a few more bullets. She stalked closer, though keeping her pistol leveled. He could not move fast enough to shoot her before she shot him, but she was not going to take foolish risks.

Haliat writhed in pain, but seeing Shepard standing over him rekindled the hatred. "Well?" he spat, wishing she was within spitting range. Her life must be charmed against anyone out of the Terminus Systems: they'd destroyed her home colony, they'd hunted her, they'd shot at her, tried to nuke her and _none of it worked_.

Shepard's heart fluttered in her chest as she looked down at the bleeding man. Here it was, one of those moments of revenge a person might dream about but so very rarely saw. Part of her, the angry part of her she kept so repressed she rarely realized it was still there, hissed at her to put a slug between his eyes. It would put him out of her misery.

But this had nothing to do with her real source of misery, with Mindoir—selecting Haliat as a representative of the Temrinus Systems, someone she could strike at was the first step on a road she'd successfully stepped off. Revenge had no place . This was, this had to be, as it always was: it had to be purely professional. If she killed him, she wanted to do it in a straight out fight, a soldier against a scumbag. But bringing him back, handing him over to Alliance High Command…that would be...well, would be following the rules.

Her personal views differed slightly, but this wouldn't be the first time the rules and her views conflicted.

"Two words Haliat," Shepard leveled her sidearm, her face set, grimly determined, finger still caressing the trigger. A little salt in the wound served only to shatter calm and confidence, which might just mess with his aim if he still considered trying anything foolish. "Critical failure_._" A grim smile curved her mouth. She still wanted to shoot him, the cold anger still burned, but it was in check.

She'd followed the Alliance party line; she hadn't compromised herself.

It did not make her feel better, but it would be worse for him to live at this point than for her to kill him. Pride would sting under the knowledge that she didn't find him with killing. Or, rather, that was what she sincerely hoped.

Haliat, with a look of supreme disgust, found himself gazing into those vivid eyes. It was too much that she should foil him twice. He could see it in her eyes, even now, knowing her thoughts without knowing her. She was considering trussing him up, thog-tying him—or whatever the stupid expression was—and giving him to the Alliance. Maybe to the Council. No, to the Alliance—she was their creature, Elysium was their colony, and it was their mess to deal with. "Not quite."

Shepard flinched at the noise, as Elanos Haliat jammed his pistol beneath his jaw and put a slug through his own head. He fell face down on the sandy ground, the gaping hole in the top of his head gushing blood, decorated with bits of brain tissue. The sand absorbed the moisture greedily, not caring for the source.

-J-

*'Thog-tying' is intentionally misspelled.


	154. Memory

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Yeah, O'Conner would _love_ you…" Shepard shook her head at Joker's pert comment, grimly amused. O'Conner _would_ to, and even more, she would love turning Joker's words on their heads. Oh to be a fly on the wall for _that_ conversation.

"_O'Conner_?" Joker turned his head so fast he cracked his neck, the name unexpectedly yanking on an old memory long submerged. "Ow…"

"You know one too, huh?" Shepard smiled ruefully.

"Yeah—long time ago. Yours got a first name?" He was still joking, and squishing the old resentment attached to the memory. And yet, a strange knot formed in his stomach. A knot he never expected to feel.

"Gina…" Shepard's answer came out cautiously. "Joker? Hey..." She gripped his shoulder.

Joker _felt_ the blood rush from his face, then watched as Shepard, too, paled.

"Blonde," she asked softly, "green eyes? Likes…"

"…the nightlife, yeah…" he finished. There could not be two of them, matching so exactly. He still remembered, very freshly, finding out she was an E, instead of someone's dependent., the obvious effort it had taken for her to 'come clean'—her words.

What a blow _that_ was—to them both.

"So…she doing okay?" He tried to sound briskly businesslike, having supposed the sudden vanishing act—without a word, letter, or telegram—was a delayed response to the uncomfortable fact of ranks. He supposed he ought to be grateful, but sometimes, when he remembered the bundle of energy and _joie de vivre_, he was not so sure. "Still breaking hearts and painting the galaxy red?" He succeeded in sounding flippant.

"She's dead, Jeff." Shepard bent the rule and addressed him not as an officer to a fellow officer, but as a dead woman's friend to said woman's sweetheart. "Killed in action…" Shepard sighed heavily, hooking one hand on the back of her neck.

"Oh…" he was not sure what to say to that, and it made his last words sound…almost crass. In his own ears they sounded spiteful, instead of just brushing off a passing acquaintance.

But this was a good explanation for her suddenly vanishing off the radar. Then, after a long silence, because he could not bear not knowing, he asked, "…how?"

Shepard closed her eyes, crossing her arms as though to protect herself form the answer—or maybe his reaction—but answered the question evenly.

For a single blinding moment, a moment Joker caught, she wasn't Commander J. A. Shepard, hero, etc., but whatever her rank had been way back then—just some enlisted kid.

"We used to be running buddies, she and I, and we were assigned to the _Midway. _We ended up on this backwater little world, on a 'blow up the target' mission. We were making our retreat, a retreat under fire, when some guy wandered into the fight. He'd gotten separated from the other team—it was a collaborative effort—and he got hurt, couldn't make it out under his own steam." Shepard took a deep breath, clearly picking her words more carefully, and with a clearer structure to her sentences. "O'Conner and I went back for him…and they got her."

Shepard flayed her lower lip, but did not say anything more about the cause of death, though something behind her bright eyes sealed off, like the doors of an airlock. Then the moment passed, and she was Shepard as he'd always known her, if a little sadder. "I knew she had a sweetheart…" Shepard admitted, "where he was or how to get a hold him. Jeff isn't an uncommon name, otherwise you'd have heard all this from me years ago."

"How long ago?"

"We'd just been promoted to Private First Class. It was the first stop after we left Yamamoto Air Station…must've been…" Shepard shook her head, counting silently.

"Seventy-three," Joker finished. He'd known her half a year by the time she seemed to disappear, but the time they spent on the same dirt probably equated to a month, maybe a month and a half. But O'Conner was charismatic…and he had his moments. Their senses of humor and smart-mouthed tendencies had not clashed, but rather rubbed the right way.

Even now, he could not figure out _how_ they managed to miss the issue of rank prior to that uncomfortable conversation. It occurred to him, only now: they were not good correspondents. More than that, there might have been a fair amount of unwillingness to recognize the cold hard facts on both sides.

O'Conner was one in a billion.

Shepard bit her lip, wondering at how paths crossed but those walking them never intersected. "Sorry I brought it up."

"Don't be." Joker began fiddling needlessly with his console, prompting Shepard to take her leave. He'd always assumed O'Conner was pinging about somewhere. Hearing she was dead, even so suddenly, was not the shock it would have been back then.

It was only like missing a step.

Now, and only now, he regretted getting rid of the things that reminded him of her. Knowing Shepard, she would not have kept any kind of memento, and he had no right to ask about that.

O'Conner's vivid face, spacer-pale, impish, and once an object of fondness swam before his eyes with impossible clarity, her green eyes glittering.

Knowledge that her sudden silence was not her choice made memories of her almost bitter.

-J-

It was the longest shift Joker had pulled for months. He was exhausted, worn out by pushing insistent memories to the back of his mind where—so he told himself—they belonged. He only noticed _it_, because it shouldn't be there.

Stuck between the door and frame of his effects locker was a holo.

A holo of Gina O'Conner. It seemed as though Shepard, fooling around with a camera, had ambushed O'Conner with it. It was the unfettered grin he remembered so clearly after having successfully—or so he thought—forgotten it. The grin that lit up a room like a dancehall.

He opened his locker and propped the holo in it.

-J-

For all of you who guessed about Joker and O'Conner.


	155. Ice

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sat in the mess, her hands clasped before her face, brow resting against them. It looked as though she was in prayer—though anyone who knew her, knew she would keep something that private in private. No, this was…well, maybe it was, but it was not an appeal.

It was meditation over an unexpected situation. O'Conner's face remained vivid in her mind any time she called it up. The person who had dragged her to a million bars if she'd done it once, and taught her that it was not such a bad thing to get up and dance. In some ways, O'Conner had done more with her own brand of WD-40 and duct tape than any psychiatrist had managed.

It was as if her personality had rubbed off a little, which was why Shepard found it easier to laugh, easier to joke, just…easier.

Until now. Until finding that the long-undiscovered 'Jeff' had sat parked at the helm of her ship for…_ages_. Worse, that he should think O'Conner had cut and run, or hopped on to another guy once she was sure a heart would break when she left.

Shepard had to admit, part of her had wanted to break Joker's legs—not difficult, and he could pilot without them—for paying O'Conner such a disservice. But the look on his face when she informed him O'Conner was _dead_ purged the impulse.

No, it just brought up an icy feeling as past and present seemed to collide like two ground cars going too fast. Shepard was certain, if nothing else, that O'Conner was kicked back in the Great Hereafter, watching '_The Life of Shepard'_ laughing, shouting, or throwing popcorn at the screen.

Unfortunately, while this visual usually humored her, Shepard found no comfort in it. She remembered a little too clearly the haunted look of near panic as a social enthusiast, someone who lived her life to the full and enjoyed every minute of it realized what had started as her usual game, something un-serious…had suddenly _become_ serious.

And complicated.

Shepard knew very well that O'Conner had no intentions, ever, of falling in love, or finding herself in a position where she might be in danger of doing so. Privately, Shepard suspected this came from early childhood, before St. Martin's. They never discussed it, but her impressions were that O'Conner's family was…highly dysfunctional.

That the crash that killed them, while sad, had an array of benefits to the young girl.

So O'Conner put herself in a position where she would _never_ even _possibly _turn into something like her parents: she kept her flirtations shallow.

But she found love. And then she died.

If she stepped back, and assessed her situation, Shepard might not have been able to articulate or supply a reason for why she should feel so distressed. However, emotions were never logical things, and a filter of them did not help in seeking logic.

This was how Alenko found her, several hours later. "Hey, you okay?"

Shepard jerked at the table, wrenched out of her shallow doze. The cold feeling in her stomach was still there as, for a moment, her mind exploded in an image of what could happen if past events repeated themselves…if death came for her suddenly.

It was a constant cloud over a marine's life, but they learned to function under it, to ignore it. Now, with old memories as a catalyst, Shepard suddenly felt as though she was half-dead already. For a moment she lost all focus, trying to sort out her thoughts, re-master herself…

All her efforts to settle her own thoughts seemed to make the static of the Cipher louder. The noise grew, like the crashing of the ocean, so much gibberish in...

"Shepard?" Alenko, truly alarmed at the sudden lack of any life or spark of consciousness behind Shepard's eyes, gave her a shake.

Shepard roused herself, animation returning. "Sorry it…got loud..." she tapped her temple.

"Right…" After sitting down, and a moment of silence, Alenko took a long sip of his coffee. "Something's bothering you."

"Yes. But it's not something I'll discuss," Shepard announced patiently, hammering the words out like a smith hammering out a sword. Then, not liking the similarities the phrase had to an emergency kill switch, "...it's...not mine to discuss."

"Oh," Alenko nodded. "I get it."

Shepard did not cover her face again, but hunched on the table, trying to combat the noise and turbulence in her mind. They seemed to amplify one another. By now she could see her own thought-loop. She _knew_ O'Conner would be throwing popcorn.

She had found 'Jeff'—let him know the truth (most of it). What was there to be mopey about?

Despite the ice in her stomach, Shepard felt the thought-loop crack. _If_ O'Conner, in life, ever saw her in this exact situation, O'Conner would creep up behind Alenko, as stealthily as possible, and nonverbally demand _why_ Shepard was being silly.

Yes, that _would_ be O'Conner. Rules and regs got in her way, and she needed time to figure out what to do about them. But rules and regs got in the way of her friends…who needed rules and regs anyway? _They_ were both Os (O'Conner would also make a cheeky Mr. Three-Out-Of-Three comment), and it was not as though Shepard was an admiral.

That _would_ be O'Conner's logic, too, Shepard thought grimly.

Alenko checked around the mess, to make sure it was empty, before reaching over and touching Shepard's wrist. "Anything I can do? To help?"

Shepard looked up, those vivid eyes as always, a little startling. For a moment Shepard meant to say 'no', but with the icy feeling in her stomach keeping O'Conner so firmly in the forefront of her mind, she answered as she would have, had the other woman actually been there. "Just…just what you're doing."

The icy feeling in Shepard's stomach began to ease as the silence continued. Alenko remained, sipping his coffee, his hand close enough to lightly touch her wrist.


	156. Java Jive

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"_This is Commander Shepard. To all hands: there will be a coffee tasting at nineteen hundred hours, in the mess. It's BYOM, bring your own mug. Hope to see you there_."

Most of the crew thought it was a joke.

Until the delicious smell of non-standard issue coffee began to waft from the coffee machine—a _new_ coffee machine sitting right beside the old one. The whiff of the brew was enough to bring the crewmen by the droves.

"Hey," Shepard poked her head into the room past the medical bay.

Liara, startled, jumped, promptly dropping the datadisc she was diagramming. It cracked, causing Shepard to flinch. "Sorry," Liara squeaked, holding up the pieces as though contemplating gluing them back together, if that were at all possible.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," Shepard could not repress the mild guilt. Prothean datadiscs were rare, and if _she_ would feel bad breaking one…

"It is all right," Liara turned in her chair, then stood up. "What can I do for you, Commander?"

"We're having a coffee tasting—thought you might want to come out of here for a bit." Shepard shrugged. She would not have called the asari antisocial, just shy. Painfully shy.

Liara pursed her lips. She could feel from Shepard's drift the Commander really did want her to come and at least have a...mug of joe—bother these human expressions. But Liara had a second reason for her tendency towards solitude: the noisy drift of humans in a small space made her feel awkward, as though she was eavesdropping.

Which was ridiculous.

"I promise, we don't bite," Shepard coaxed. It really wasn't good for the asari to stay back here all the time—and for a moment Shepard found herself sounding much like O'Conner. The irony was more than a little amusing.

"I'm not very fond of coffee…but if you like," Liara pushed her chair in, put the datadisc in its box, closed the box, and put it away.

Shepard watched Liara picking up after herself, then led the way back to the mess.

Liara stopped, blinking owlishly at the room. The drift here was comprised of a general, uniform, overwhelming sentiment of utter content.

Shepard glanced back at Liara, who looked both surprised and fascinated by the smell of the coffee. "I know it says bring your own mug on the poster…but it's a navy joke. I promise."

"Thank you…" Liara _did_ get a mug of coffee, for the sake of not being rude, and retreated to the corner where Shepard, Alenko and Williams sat in the padded chairs near the forever-flickering panel—now dark thanks to the concerted efforts of said trio.

"Have a seat," Shepard waved to any one of the empty seats—the mess was only beginning to really fill up.

Liara perched on Shepard's other side, prim and—to Shepard's mind—ladylike as always; like a little girl in a schoolroom. Try as she might, she could not kick the perception.

"Where _did_ all this come from?" Williams asked, breaking her usual rule of one mug a day and sipping at the rich, velvety Columbian blend.

"Don't question a good thing," Alenko shook his head. This was as good as the stuff from home—maybe even better.

"I don't mind telling you, but it's not to wander too far," Shepard leaned forward, her marines and Liara following suit. "This Spectre demands decent coffee. And because this is a Spectre vessel," Shepard continued, in her best tone of dry legalese, to the amusement of her covey of listeners, "with a Spectre's crew, this Spectre demands coffee all around. It's all on the Council's dime, so drink up." She lifted her mug and took a long, slow sip.

"You didn't…" Williams grinned.

"I certainly _did_," Shepard answered, very self-satisfied as she lowered her Relay Rob's mug. "And I intend to keep this ship stocked with decent coffee. No more of that navy crap—and it _is_ crap."

Hesitantly, because the smell coming from the mug was enticing, Liara took a sip.

...and nearly spit it back out, to the surprise of the marines. Only by clamping her teeth together did she suspend actually rejecting the toxic sludge.

"What's wrong?" Williams asked, her mug suspended halfway to her mouth, as the asari swallowed a too-hot mouthful and sputtered. "It's not _that_ hot," but rather than deprecatory, she sounded only mildly surprised.

"Ugh…" Liara made a face, her eyes watering. "…oh my…"

"I'll bet she got the Columbian stuff," Williams noted idly.

"It all tastes the same, it's _horrible_!" Liara managed, immediately stowing the mug under her chair, so as not to repeat the mistake of assuming good smell equaled good taste. All coffee was 'joe' therefore all coffee was _awful_!

"It's _good_. And a good source of caffeine," Shepard shrugged. It _was_ good, smooth, full-bodied flavor with the right amount of hazelnut—at least, _her_ mug was hazelnut.

The ambient air smelled of French vanilla and Columbian blend. She wasn't sure who had what.

"You can't just drink tea like civilized people?" Liara wondered if she'd singed off all her taste buds—first with the hot coffee, then with the flavor. For a moment the three marines just looked at her, as though she'd done something completely unexpected, their drift suspiciously silent. It was as though she'd suddenly found herself pushed onstage, into a bright spotlight.

It wasn't like her 'commando' comment, but she knew she had missed something. "What?"

"She made a joke," Williams stated blankly, as though the fact startled her.

Shepard grinned. "It's a good one, though."

"This is one of those 'marine things'. Isn't it?"

Shepard caught Alenko's eye before she could answer. Almost unnoticed, he bit his lower lip gently, as though refraining from making some comment. Apparently the gesture was not enough to contain his amusement, for he immediately hid an impish smile behind his coffee mug explained it all: he was thinking of another 'marine thing' involving Liara's first mission.


	157. Vacation

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sat behind her desk, playing on her console while she pretended to work. The _Normandy_ had docked planetside for a resupply and refueling, affording the crew a day or two of shore leave—which was gratefully received. Shepard was glad to give the order for it, goodness knew she felt the crew deserved it.

The open door of her office let her hear the sounds of the crew chattering as they headed for the elevator in groups of two or three. "Hey," Williams poked her head in, as the noise died down, signaling most of the crew had gone ashore. "Do you have something against vacations, Skipper?"

Shepard smiled, though she knew Williams would not get the joke. Her vacations tended to bring Murphy's Army of Misfortune screaming in. Screaming in with a vengeance. Best for the colony if she just stayed put, and stayed on duty.

Shepard never considered herself superstitious, but she was forced to wonder if maybe she was clinging to one or two, after all. "No rest for the weary, Williams. Go have fun for me."

"Have it yourself. Come on, even Alenko managed to unshackle himself from being on standby." Williams leaned comfortably against the doorframe. "We could all use a mini-vacation, you included." It was only because they were friends, bound together by flying bullets and liberal uses of medigel that she continued. "A vacation won't kill you."

Shepard's face broke into a genuine smile, and she settled back in her chair. "The last vacation I took was at Elysium. Just before things started exploding." It was worth keeping a straight face to watch Williams' expression change from amusement, to discomfort as she realized Shepard was serious, to eyes bugging, then to 'you've got to be kidding'. Shepard slowly shook her head.

It was too strange to be fiction or fabrication.

"You're serious." Williams could not stop the Alenko-like comment, leaving her to wonder if, maybe, the El-Tee was rubbing off on her. Well, that was hardly surprising, she had had several moments before now during which she thought she sounded vaguely like Shepard.

"As a heart attack."

Williams cleared her throat, wondering exactly how far she was allowed to joke. Since Shepard was not one to crack the whip at first infraction—she usually gave clear warning—Williams decided she dared. "You know, Commander, you're not exactly a little…what were you? Corporal?" Shepard shook her head to indicate a different rank, "You're not exactly a little corporal anymore. I mean, you frag geth for a living, you're chasing down a crazy turian Spectre; I think you could handle a little old vacation just fine."

"I appreciate the thought, Williams, but I've got a lot of work." Unease shifted in the back of her mind. The last person to pressure her into getting off a ship whens he had no desire to do so was Robbins, and in that instance Robbins had rank to throw around.

Williams shook her head, entertaining the suspicion that Shepard was not working as hard as she was pretending to right now. It was her cover to avoid being dislodged from her ship. Superstitious much? "Come on, there's got to be something worth seeing. They've got…shopping?" She scrunched up her face. She hated inane shopping trips.

"I carry a gun, Williams. Visibly."

"So do I," Williams chuckled at the thought of going shopping in full armor with the entire array of weapons. If they took it badly on the Citadel, they would probably not take it too well here. "I can't believe we're having this conversation."

"You could always give up," Shepard offered cheekily.

Williams chuckled, but considered further options. "They've got beaches. Nice ones."

"I burn." But Shepard was smiling, enjoying her playful contrariness.

Williams eyes lit up as she consulted her omnitool. "Then…I guess you wouldn't be interested in a trip to…"

"Look, Williams, I'm staying _right here_. I've got things to do." Shepard's words were pleasant, but final. However, Williams' expression made her nervous.

"Oh, right. Well, it's not like I outrank you, so I guess I won't even bring up the fact they've got a Relay Rob's here. Ten minutes from the spaceport. And it's customer appreciation night, starting at five." Williams clicked her tongue in an 'it's your loss' fashion. "I'll think of you, Skipper."

"I really hate you, Williams." But Shepard shook her head in suppressed mirth as she said it. For Relay Rob's she might risk the safety of the colony. That was sad, in so many ways. Then again, even without the MacRib sandwiches she so detested, shipside food did get very old, very quickly.

"I know. So, are you going to try to shake free of the turian's journals or whatever you're pretending to work on long enough to see who shows up?"

"I'll try," Shepard refused to commit. "Tell me about the beach when you get back.

Williams snorted. "Beach? Me? I swim in a _pool_, not in an ocean. Nope, I'm going to scope out the port, then it's off to mod my rifle. It's starting to shoot to the left."

"And you hassled _me_ about not wanting to do the vacation thing?"

"Hey, I'm getting off the ship, walking on the boardwalk and doing some shopping. How much more touristy can you get?" Williams asked, mock defensive. "I don't have your battery of excuses. Even if I did, I wouldn't use them. You ever seen the kind of guys who hang out at the beach?"

"The same kind of guys who filled the N-program, no doubt. And beach bums," she added as an afterthought. If her responsibilities were any less pressing, or if she was anyone but herself, she might consider a walk on the boardwalk to play tourist.

However, she was a marine, a Spectre, on a mission. The mission always came first; personal concerns always came much farther down the list. The bleakness of the thought startled her. "I'll try to shake loose, Williams."


	158. Smooth

Beta-read by Saberlin.

I'm not dead! Sorry to be MIA last week—I had three exams for a lab class and little time for anything else. But, hopefully, things will settle back into the usual beat. (For those interested, I believe I did well.) Enough of my excuses—enjoy!

-J-

Shepard's eyes darted over the welcome wagon. The stern but composed face of the lady obviously in charge held neither hostility, nor welcome. In fact, she stood about a head shorter than Shepard herself but radiated a force of personality that was both subtle and absolute.

"That's far enough," the tiny lady held up her hand. "I'm Captain Matsuo, head of security."

Eyeing the heavy rifles held by the blonde woman and the turian flanking the lead hat, Shepard did not need the warning. "My associates and I aren't here to cause you problems." She meant it: she wasn't here to cause the security forces any trouble. She intended to cause Benezia—and Saren, if possible—a _whole _lot, though.

"This is an unscheduled arrival. I will need your credentials."

It was not the first time Shepard wished she had a badge or something to flash, or a secret handshake. "I'm Commander Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

The blonde woman sniffed, then snorted. "Load of horseshit, ma'am."

Shepard was on the point of mentioning that if they could not tap the extranet for news feeds, then an unscheduled arrival was the _least_ of their problems. Captain Matsuo, however, silenced her sergeant—or that was the impression Shepard had of the second woman—with a look. "We will need to confirm that, Commander. Also, I must advise you that firearms are not permitted on Noveria. Sergeant, please secure their weapons."

Shepard took a step back, but did not draw her weapon. Liara's and Alenko's biotics both flared, though Liara's was the more visible—a clear threat, whereas Alenko was both declaring himself and giving fair warning.

One did not disarm a biotic.

"We going to let them do this, Commander?" Alenko asked softly.

Alenko was no more fond of politics than Shepard, and held the opinion that corporate politics was probably worse than the career stuff. Corporate was better at keeping secrets.

Liara did not say anything, but took in a deep breath as though she meant to, before clamping her jaws shut.

The sergeant—also a biotic, who flared up in answer to Liara and Alenko—and the turian both shouldered their weapons, but Capt. Matsuo did not. "This is, I'm afraid, standard procedure."

Shepard was not having that. She would play nicely, but she was _not _entering a place where there were known enemies without her weapon close to hand. Assume, she had told the others, where there are identified enemies there will also be geth. She could frag geth, but she liked having a gun to polish them off with. "Here's _my_ standard procedure: I, and my associates, keep our guns. However, this _is_ your house: I'll wait on my ship until you authenticate my—"

"Capt. Matsuo! Stand down!" The disembodies call to order sounded almost startled.

Shepard did not blame the speaker for feeling antsy: her clearances were genuine, and the run of the mill Spectre probably did not take kindly to this sort of accosting. Saren would probably start shooting, Shepard throught grimly, so poor was her opinion of the turian's comportment.

She could not fault his tactics, subtlety, or intelligence but she did not have to be fair, like his personality, or value his opinion on almost any issue.

"We confirmed the Commander's identity. Spectres are authorized to carry weapons here, Captain."

Shepard relaxed a little, but noticed that while the turian did so as well, the hard-faced sergeant did not…almost as though she had hoped for a fight.

"Your pardon," Capt. Matsuo inclined her head a little in polite apology—not apology for doing her job, but to 'make nice'. It was a courtesy that did not need sincerity, it was a form to be observed. Shepard knew this well, having done similar many times herself. "You may proceed, Spectre. I hope the rest of your stay," she gave the sergeant a meaningful look, and the biotic flare died away, "will be less confrontational."

Alenko and Liara settled as well, though Liara radiated readiness, the sort of jumpy nerves Shepard expected from a normally noncombatant, one who only had a mission or two under her belt. It was just like herding fresh meat…that was to say, 'new marines'.

"I hope so as well, Captain Matsuo."

"Parasini-san," Capt. Matsuo motioned to indicate the voice that had broken up the stalemate, "will undoubtedly meet you upstairs."

"Behave yourself," the sergeant murmured with dark hints of 'or else'.

Shepard did not answer, she merely smiled that catlike smile that served her so well. "I hope my associates will be permitted too…?"

"Unless Parasini-san indicates otherwise. This way, please. Sergeant, Romulus," the gentle dismissal was followed by Capt. Matsuo padding off. Her ladylike comportment made Shepard feel like a lumbering hulk by contrast.

Glancing over her shoulder, she found the sergeant eyeing her grimly, clearly the source of the peculiar itch between Shepard's shoulder blades.

"Please, do not mind Sgt. Stirling; she is only doing her duty," Capt. Matsuo noted, almost as though commenting on the décor as they left the cold landing pier.

Shepard shuddered and Alenko gave a soft groan as the marines entered the too-warm reception area. "What is it?" she demanded softly.

"A little condensation…" He shivered, and Shepard had to repress asking what it felt like.

"Just up those stairs, Commander," Capt. Matsuo motioned up a large staircase. The whole building seemed to have been made by pouring concrete into a cast. Everything was bare, sparse, and solid; there was no chance of getting lost.

"Should I worry?" Shepard glanced over at Liara and then back over her shoulder at Alenko.

"No, just a little uncomfortable…takes a lot to break a biotic, Commander."

She knew he was being serious, very serious—it was part of her job to worry about these things—but the way he did not quite meet her eyes meant she could safely read a joke into it, if she wanted to. "Really? I'll bear that in mind."


	159. Break the Rules

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Liara sat uncomfortably between Lieutenant Alenko and Commander Shepard. Both marines hunched, disgruntled, over soft drinks in the bar of Port Hanshan. Outside the storm raged, violent winds preventing the snow from accumulating over the windows set into the concrete ceiling of the entire port complex. Light was fading, or perhaps it was simply the clouds thickening.

No one spoke, but no one needed to. Corporate stonewalling was not exactly new to either of the marines, and they were reminded forcibly that it was harder to work around corporate stonewalling than military or political stonewalling. There had to be a way—over, under, around or through—that Anoleis slug. 'Through' did not seem like an option; Shepard had tried 'through'.

She rested her head in her palm, the heel of her hand digging into her forehead. There had to be a way, there was _always_ a way.

-J-

Alenko was thinking along much the same track as Shepard, complete with the somewhat bloodthirsty pondering over whether or not warping Anoleis into a paperweight might not speed things up. The salarian was undoubtedly as crooked as his stature.

Not that he would ever _seriously_ consider warping someone into a racquetball-sized glob, but it did inject a note of humor into the funk of trying to find answers in a mire of gray sludge. They were going to have to work _around_ Anoleis. Through had not worked, over—was there any oversight here that he did not have fingers in?—did not seem to be an option, nor did under. This place was as corporate (bordering on illegal) as you could get. There was nothing 'under', this was bedrock for corruption.

-J-

Liara eyed her drink dismally. If this was what those crew nights at Flux were like, she knew she was right not to go. The gloomy atmosphere was making her fingers and toes go cold. It was like having a rain cloud looming over the table, and took all the pleasure out of her drink.

-J-

"This sucks," Shepard spat at the table, heaving a sigh. One thing and another, and blast these corporate politicos…she would love to round quite a few of them up and drop them somewhere safe. A nice, cozy space rock in some uncolonized system suggested itself. It made her glad she was a soldier, not having to deal with this degree of bullshit. Because it sounded like bullshit to her.

Wrapped up neatly, and in pretty paper, but that did not change the smell. _Blast_ corporate. Oh, was she glad she was a soldier and did not have to deal with this on a normal day. Were these civilians really such pukes? If not, how did they stand it out here? No paycheck was worth this.

Unbeknownst to Shepard, her drift pummeled against Liara's sense for such things like sharp rain. The asari shifted again, wishing she could put more distance between the humans and herself. They were going to inadvertently drown her in bad vibes, and she had not learned how to completely block those out yet. Not from humans, anyway—though she'd made much progress in recent weeks.

-J-

Alenko frowned into his water. It was good that Williams, with her well-known hatred of politics, wasn't here. This place was worse than any political powwow he had ever heard of—including volus filibusters. If he had not felt so disgruntled, he might have wondered what two marines in a bad mood were doing to Liara—who was not used to dealing with marines in the field, or with their bad moods.

"You know, the Administrator is hiding things…" Liara offered gently. She did not want to tip her hand that she _could_ catch people's drift—it would certainly bode no good for her. Humans, despite the fact that they drifted with more volume than anyone else, liked their privacy.

"We'll never prove it," Shepard watched the lights overhead bounce off the surface of her water as she twirled it in her glass. Frak, but she could go for an Astro-Fizz right now. "He's a slug with the sense to hide his slime."

"But we cannot give up," Liara asserted. "There must be a way."

Shepard and Alenko both tried not to smile. The idealistic assertion did not come across as naiveté, so much as stating the obvious. Still, coming from a kid like Liara, her attempt to bolster the mood at the table was amusing.

"Agreed," Alenko nodded.

"Well, we can't go through him, so let's try going around," Shepard voiced common consensus, knowing it was common consensus.

"Ideas?" Alenko asked. "I haven't got any."

"Me neither," Shepard admitted, nodding.

Liara shook her head when both marines looked over at her.

"I take that back, I may have something to…" Shepard drained her water, looking around to make sure they were not being overheard. "I just need to know what the rules are…before I start breaking them. Come on," Shepard got up, shaking her head. "We're not going to get anything done here, let's head back to the _Normandy_."

Maybe familiar surroundings would facilitate ideas better than brooding over water in a place so full of corruption and unscrupulous money-lovers that the Citadel seemed a preferable locale. At least on the Citadel there were the Wards to wander around in, where one could get away from the politics.

"What kind of rules were you thinking about breaking?" Alenko asked softly.

"Dunno."

"You know…I could hotwire a ground car, if you could hack it started." The declaration came across so quietly Shepard almost missed it.

"Alenko…how…_why_ would you know anything about hotwiring cars?"

Alenko did not answer, but smiled in a rather self-satisfied sort of way as he shrugged. It was not a smile Shepard was used to seeing on his face, though she decided she would not mind seeing it more often.

She suddenly _could_ imagine him as a rule-breaker with a leather jacket and a motorcycle, with that look on his face. It made her wonder...


	160. Snow

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Locale: En route to Peak 15 (using a borrowed Noveria rover, not the actual Mako).

-J-

Shepard liked snow, and cold weather, and nasty storms as well as the next person. She liked winter elements right up until she pulled the borrowed rover onto the icy path leading to Peak 15. /That was when she decided ice and snow were the nastiest things the weather could throw at you. Noverian winds sent snow cutting like curtains of little daggers across the road. The windshield wipers could not keep up with the snow, and the corners of the windshield showed condensation. If fogged-up visors were bad, this was worse.

The only good thing about the situation was that Alenko had the turret—and with all the geth crawling around because of that ancient asari, she could not think of anyone else in this group who needed to sit in the gunnery seat more.

Liara was next to useless in the Mako, through no fault of her own.

Snow should, Shepard thought savagely as the wheels spun, threatening to sink into the snow and get stuck, be enjoyed from a warm place with hot drinks…and maybe a friend. Or someone closer than a friend. Or, at worst, snow should be a place for sports, snowball fights, and ice skating. Not that she knew much about ice skating…but it looked like fun.

But _no_—she was caught in a blizzard, on a narrow, icy spit of land crawling with guns attached to synthetic carriers. In a rover. She never thought she would miss the Mako, but here it was, the only reason this vehicle _had_ a gun began and ended with the nathaks, for which Noveria was noted.

They sounded like sub-zero resistant varren to her. She preferred natural predators to the geth…but there. At least the geth would show up well on the sensory arrays. Not as well as an organic, but well enough. At least the vehicle had a heater…and thank goodness for thermal mesh underlays, and armor that allowed cold weather gear to slide on over it.

-J-

Liara shivered in the passenger seat, mostly from nerves. She was not looking out the windshield, and so did not see the hazards of the road with the same clarity Shepard and Alenko could. Her mind was not on the road, or the imminent approach of hostile synthetics.

Her mind rested on her mother. She wanted, when she first heard about Benezia's betrayal, to deny it, to call Shepard an unbalanced specimen of humanity. To defend Benezia resolutely. But the impulse died quickly, before the words finished forming in her mind. She had lost contact with Benezia. And it seemed Shepard and Alenko's assertions were true.

She did not want them to be true…but she could not look away from the facts, facts as cold and hard as the Noverian weather just now. The cold meant little to her, in the face of what lay ahead. Shepard's words echoed in her mind, the assurance that no one would think less of her, if she chose to stay aboard the _Normandy_.

Because Shepard was sure how this would end, and could not in good conscience demand Liara come along when Benezia would probably end up very dead. Nor could she order Liara to stay put, for the same reason. Liara knew very well that Shepard was not counting on her presence to sway Benezia at all. Whether Benezia knew about what happened on Therum, or was ignorant, was immaterial.

She had allied with Saren, the geth, and these…Reapers. Liara had to agree with Shepard, although it pained her to do so in this case. If Benezia really was bent on aiding and abetting Saren and his plans…well, there was nothing else they could doubt what they were doing.

Liara crossed her arms tighter across her midsection as Alenko barked a heads-up, knowing she could do nothing more than jostle about in her harness, like loose change in a snug pocket. Somehow, the snow and ice driving against the vehicle seemed not inappropriate. It certainly fit her mindset. Forget the geth.

-J-

Alenko spent quite a bit of his life in Vancouver, and knew a thing or two about winter as a long, cold, unyielding season. He'd discovered, after getting back from Brain Camp, that severe cold made his headjack ache. Still, despite the discomfort, the season was not without its benefits. Winter might not be great for kayaking, but cross-country skiing was certainly in.

Hunting geth in the middle of a Noverian snowstorm did not compare with anything he had yet seen. Even with the amp firmly in place, the whole region of and around his headjack ached, seeming impossibly cold. If people thought cold feet made you all cold, they were obviously not biotics.

With visibility so low, it made the gun—unresponsive even compared to the Mako—harder than ever to use. Maybe it would be better to pop the gunner's emergency hatch so he and Liara could use their biotics to handle the geth.

Shepard hit one head-on, with a grunt as the vehicle balked, skidded, then returned to its course. "That's five points for me."

Alenko returned his attention to the gun. Only Shepard would think about popping geth for points—much less doing so in these conditions. But the atmosphere in the vehicle released a little. "Kind of makes you wish for the Mako."

He picked off another synthetic, as though to punctuate the sentence.

"Or skis," Liara murmured, making the marines—not for the first time—wonder if asari really _could_ read people's thoughts.

"_Skiing_?" Shepard asked, before swerving back to the mountain-side of the road.

Liara gave a nervous giggle. "A hundred years is a lot of time to pick and choose your hobbies, Commander."

Alenko could not see Shepard's nonverbal response to this, but he nodded agreement, an image of the three of them trying to ski in these conditions parading before his mind's eye.

Shepard grit her teeth as she swerved again, the snow slipping under the heavy-duty wheels.

She hated snow.


	161. Fade

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Benezia slouched against the Queen's tank, one hand clamped over a wound that brought about pain more excruciating than any she'd ever felt in her entire, long life. Infinitely worse than the pain, was the horrified look on her daughter's face. Her Little Wing had not—as Benezia half expected—dropped her pistol to put her hands over her mouth—her childish way of expressing shock or embarrassment. She simply stood there, as though carved of ice, her eyes—so like her father's—wide.

Her drift pulsed with a roil of blue-gray sadness, of chartreuse nausea over what she'd witnessed—helped to do—and an odd shade that defied a name, that conveyed to another asari the sense of not having known someone before them…only to discover that they did, when it was too late, when harsh words (or bullets) had stopped flying.

It was not something she wanted as her last sight. She turned her attention to Shepard, whose drift vibrated like a plucked string, the sense of sound/motion replacing any color sense.

Strange how now, when her own flame burned so low, she could perceive so much. As she watched their physical selves she found she perceived their drifts more clearly, as though that aspect, perceptible only to asari, seemed to replace those aspect to which other races were restricted.

In a tiny corner of her mind, she approved the reassuring brown sturdiness of the man at Shepard's left. Like a tree, a tap-rooted tree, secure in its place and immovable. Something against which one could safely anchor.

But…her little girl, her Little Wing was…grown up. In a way she should not have had to. Was it heartless for Shepard to have brought her here? Or had Liara insisted? Before now she would have argued that Liara would not have had the iron of will to do it—she had never needed such before. It would have come more gently with time.

But the look in her daughter's eyes said it all: adversity had forced her to adapt, necessity had forced her to make certain decisions, decisions that could put ice in her heart and steel in her spine. Not bad things, in small amounts, in and of themselves…

…but incongruous in her little girl.

Sticky blood made her fingers slip as her hand momentarily fell away from the wound.

"Knowing the coordinates isn't enough," Liara said softly, her eyes still wide and staring, but now filled with pity. "Do you know where he planned to go from there?"

Clamping her hand more firmly over the wound, Benezia shook her head, her hat slipping uncomfortably. "Saren wouldn't tell me. But whatever it is, you _must_ find out quickly. I transmitted the coordinates to him before you arrived." All three drifts spiked with apprehension, both humans seemed to coil reflexively, as though ready to spring into action at some small signal. Their drifts began to vibrate, wavering between green and yellow like the patter water sometimes threw across a wall or a ceiling.

"You have to stop m-me…" she choked, something pulling at the inside of her mind, something like a garrote from behind, or a bag being popped over her head. Her skin prickled into gooseflesh, cold sweat standing out on it.

Shepard would make it quick and painless.

Even if she acted now, Benezia knew she would not be able to do much, not in her weakened state, not with at least one marine braced to shoot her at the first threatening movement. She did not doubt that Shepard—though her drift hinted at regret over having to do this thing—would be the first to fire and the only one who would need to. Benezia suspected the regret stemmed more from having to do it in Liara's presence than out of pity for one who could no more stop the upcoming attack than stop breathing.

She shuddered. "I c-can't..." Sickly claws ran along her spine, half-comprehensible whispers twisting like a ball of serpents in her mind, edging her, herself, out of the way so the indoctrinated greater part of her mind could resume control. The pain seemed to fade, as though she was being packed away, separated from everything, relegated to a passenger seat in her own body. "His teeth are at my ear…fingers on my spine…" her voice lost coherence, her words a jumble, so much meaningless babble.

Why didn't the soldier hurry and pull the trigger? Did she not understand what was happening? Why hesitate when the inevitable was obvious?

But she already knew: Shepard would not shoot her if Liara might think it was in cold blood. She would protect the girl from that, at least, while Benezia could appreciate the gesture in that corner of her mind that was still her own…

…it was insanely foolish.

"You should…" Her last tenuous hold on her own actions slipped, leaving her falling into the dark recesses of her own mind.

"Mother!" Liara's anguished voice tore form the back of the group, causing Shepard to raise her weapon—lest Liara make the foolish mistake of pushing her way to the fore.

With a monumental effort she tried to reassert herself, but the words came out only as a whisper, a whisper she was not sure Liara would even hear. "I was…am…proud of you…"

"_Die_." The voice was hers, but the word wasn't, and no sooner had she uttered it than her biotics flared…

Bullets slammed into her, pops of light appearing from two sources.

The first shot came from the man with the brown drift, reacting to the threat more quickly, partly because he was half screened by Shepard. The single blossom of crimson, like the track left by a hand dragged through water, explaining the swiftness.

She fell back a second time, and the pain was dim. As the scream of frustrated effort echoed in her mind, everything else began to blur, harsh edges softening.

Liara's eyes were all there were in the world.


	162. Anywhere but Here

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was over in a flurry of biotic pulses and gunshots. The injured, brainwashed asari stood little chance against the two marines, which was just as well. Even if that…that _shell_ was not really her mother, Liara did not think she could handle a second drawn-out fight.

Benezia's eyes unfocused as she slid to the ground, aided by Shepard, who was actively trying to stop the inevitable. Shepard _knew_ death was inevitable, but for Liara's sake, Shepard refused to give up.

Alenko caught Shepard's look, understood her motive, and promptly, aware of the futility, whipped out a dose of painkillers.

Benezia's breathing grew shallow, her eyes opened vaguely, and her mouth rounded.

A scream, stuck in Liara's throat as she watched her mother's last moments. Despite her armor, and the cold-weather gear over it, the temperature of the room seemed to drop, seeping into her very bones as she stood, frozen.

"Stay with me, come on…" Shepard growled, easing Benezia to a prone position, with some help from Alenko. Shepard's omnitool flared as Alenko smeared medigel liberally over the worst of the injuries.

"She's still got a heartbeat," Alenko relayed.

"You're a thousand years old, you can hang on a couple more decades!" It was a lost fight. Benezia, even if she had any strength left, would not use that last reserve to fight for her life.

"She's not breathing…" Alenko began administering chest compressions as Shepard took over plugging the bullet holes, trying to stop blood from gushing from them. It was all she could do to smear the medigel like papier-mâché paste, working around Alenko's hands.

Shepard's omnitool began to whine. "We're losing her!" Shepard's tone sharpened.

Alenko tipped Benezia's head back, opening the airway before beginning the resuscitative breathing.

Liara opened her mouth, though she wasn't sure what to say. As long as Benezia's heart was still beating, there was a chance…wasn't there? The two soldiers seemed to be working so hard...and yet Liara could see the truth.

Benezia was already lost, the marines simply were not ready to accept it, mostly for the sake of the silent asari behind them. Liara appreciated the kindness, and regretted their wasted efforts.

Shepard's omnitool went silent.

Alenko looked down at Benezia's vacant face before looking up at Shepard, his hands still clasped, ready to continue compressions. But there was no use, no need. Shepard's mouth, slightly agape, closed. Her face, hidden from Liara, said it all.

The asari was gone. There was never a chance of bringing her back around, and Benezia would not have wished it. Shepard rocked back on her heels, resisting the urge to see how Liara was taking this; it wasn't like losing a parent to sickness, or a freak accident, after all.

Liara watched, half paralyzed as Shepard held up her omnitool, the red light of it turning Benezia's blue skin a strange shade of gray-lavender. Shepard exhaled, long and slow, shaking her head before turning to face the young asari, her expression stricken as she gave voice to what Liara already knew: "I'm sorry, Liara. She's gone."

Liara swallowed hard, gazing down at the husk that was once her mother. Suddenly, she wished she was anywhere but here. Her eyes stung, but she did not permit the tears to fall, composing herself as best she could. "You did what you could, and I am grateful," Liara strode forward, peering over the two marines. In death, some of the harsh lines and creases around Benezia's eyes had vanished. "…but that…that husk was not my mother." The words came out quiet, half truth and half a lie. Liara pursed her lips before speaking again, this time to Benezia. "Find peace in the embrace of the goddess."

Shepard got up, recognizing a benediction when she heard one, and shouldered her rifle. "We should finish here and get going. There're still plenty of those bugs crawling around. I would prefer not to leave them lurking." It would take them someplace else, anywhere but here. Liara had never known death like this, on a personal level.

Did a person ever become numb to it? Liara's eyes strayed to Shepard as the soldier edged towards the tank holding the rachni queen. Shepard knew what this was like, in fact, she had once known it with far greater scope and magnitude: she had lost parents and siblings, been helpless, unable to stop it. For a gleaming moment, Liara could see how Shepard got to be where she was. With experience came insight, but despite this she knew Shepard would be unable to counsel her on how to let go of the pain, of the shock and the grief which would undoubtedly manifest eventually.

Loss was personal, and no one could counsel another about how to cope with it.

"Hang in there," Alenko's hand closed over Liara's shoulder. She was, after all, just a kid, by her people's standards.

"Thank you, Lieutenant, but I am quite all right." She sounded credibly so, but knew no one believed her.

As she peered around the room, Liara's eyes kept sliding back to that husk. The more she looked at the body, the more certain she was that it had nothing to do with her. It was a stranger wearing her mother's face, nothing more.

Benezia had said it herself: she was no longer herself, she never would be again. It was some comfort now, for her daughter, even if it was a cold comfort.

She wanted to be anywhere but here, doing something to make the responsible parties pay. Time was short, they should move on quickly and prevent Saren from gaining any time from this gambit.

The words sounded hard, felt hard within her mind, but there was comfort in them, as long as she could depersonalize the situation. Pangs of grief, layers of ice, like the ice of Noveria, numbed the pain, giving her time to impartially process the data and move on before the emotional side tried to overwhelm her.


	163. Unnerving

Hey, I'm alive! Live got pretty out of hand for a while, but I think it's stabilized, now. Sorry for the long silence, this story has NOT been abandoned!.

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard wished there was something she could say to Liara. It was much more helpful to the asari when Alenko put an arm around Liara's shoulders, like an older brother.

Liara accepted the comfort gracefully, reaching up to close her small hand over his.

Shepard looked away, unperturbed. At least _someone_ knew what to do

She gave the Rachni Queen her attention; it was possibly the ugliest creature she'd ever encountered. It was _hideous_.

She turned—the eyes that focused on her were a little too intelligent for an over-large bug—to ask something to break the silence. "Alenko! Move!" Shepard raised her pistol to pump the shuffling asari that appeared behind him full of slugs, but stopped. There was something _unnatural_ about the asari's movements, the way her head lolled on her neck, the way she blundered past Alenko and Liara, past Shepard, and turned to flop back against the tank, as though resting.

"What the…" Alenko straightened, pulling Liara with him.

Shepard shook her head uncomprehendingly as the asari's posture straightened a little, the Rachni Queen seeming to huddle behind the grotesque parody of a puppet.

…_puppet_. Suspicion blossomed in Shepard's mind like an unnerving flower.

"This one serves…as our voice." The words came out uncertainly, as though the asari had trouble working her own vocal cords. The muscles in her neck tensed and flexed convulsively as though someone were pulling on the ends to see where each muscle went. Her glassy eyes seemed to shine—a shine spookily similar to the Rachni Queen's eyes. Behind the low tones, so low as to seem painful, came a clicking, hissing whisper. "We cannot sing…not in these low spaces."

Shepard exchanged a look with her startled colleagues.

"Your musics are…color-less."

"Musics?" Musical bugs? This would, Shepard decided, be _hilarious_ if it wasn't so…spooky. And coming from a supposed-Spectre, it was not a word she should use.

"Your way of communicating." The voice sounded as perplexed as Shepard felt. "It is strange. Flat. It does not color the air. When we speak," Shepard's eyes slid from the asari's face to the Rachni Queen, "one moves all. We are the…mother. We sing for those…left behind. The children you thought silenced."

Shepard tensed: was this Big Mama about to fight back? Could she crack that tank? It was bad enough fighting the big ones, she couldn't imagine fighting _this_ monstrosity…

"We are…Rachni."

Shepard relaxed marginally, but only marginally. That sounded like a polite introduction if ever she heard one. There was too much missing information—no one knew anything about Rachni—at least, no one teaching anything to Alliance officers. "How are you speaking…through her?" This had to be Spectre territory: there was no hint of a training manual, no established procedure.

The rachni were—as far as the galaxy knew or cared—extinct. Which put Shepard in a very uncomfortable position that she was more than happy to overlook for the time being.

Liara moved to stand beside Shepard's shoulder, her expression still frozen. She simply stared into the tank, blinking every so often as if to prove she still lived. Shepard was not sure if this was fascination or something upon which to focus, to distract her from recent events.

"Our kind sing through touchings of thought. We pluck the strings and the other understands. She is weak to urging. She has colors we have no names for. But she is ending," the voice took on an essence of sadness, even though the tone did not vary. "Her music is bittersweet. It is beautiful."

Shepard's stomach quivered, and she lowered her weapon. It was all well and good to think of rachni as giant cockroaches when they were rabid and trying to tear one's throat out. It was another thing completely to hear them talking about music and beautiful things.

It was also unnerving.

"The children we birthed were stolen from us, before they could learn to sing. They are lost to silence." Again, the pain without actual tonal inflection in the voice. "End their suffering. They cannot be saved. They will only cause harm as they are."

Shepard's found herself edging forward, until she stood flush with the dying asari, almost shoulder to shoulder, gazing into the tank. The Rachni queen lowered her head, bringing one gleaming eye to Shepard's face level. "You're giving me your blessing to kill your…clutch?"

What _did_ one call a nest-full of rachni? A clutch? A brood?

"These _needle-men_," the word seemed to sting like a slap. Shepard wondered if this was truly her own perception, or perhaps some of what the Rachni Queen had half-mentioned, her way of communicating. Of course, between two such alien minds, the effect wouldn't be the same as if the Rachni Queen spoke to one of her own…but surely there would be something perceptible by a human…? "They stole our eggs from us." A roiling of anger. "They sought to turn our children into beasts of war." The anger turned hot. "_Claws_ with no songs of their own." The Rachni Queen fell silent for a moment, great eyes half-closing. "Our elders are comfortable with silence," she murmured resentfully, "but children known only fear if no one sings to them. Fear has _shattered_ their minds."

The word '_shattered_' brought goosebumps to Shepard's skin that had nothing to do with the Noveria chill that seemed to permeate everything.

"Makes sense," Alenko murmured, touching the back of Shepard's arm between plates as he moved to stand beside her. "A baby left alone in a closet until he's sixteen wouldn't be sane."

Shepard nodded agreement. Strange that the Rachni should pick that particular sentiment: there was a time when _she _had been very uncomfortable with silence. Now…it didn't matter so much. Was it truly because she was older…or because she had people who were comforting by their presence alone, not just by words to fill up empty air?

"Do what you must."

Strange words came out of Shepard's mouth: "We'll make it quick."

-J-

**'Color-less' is hyphenated on purpose to convey the Rachni Queen's discomfort with the spoken word (even when passed through a medium like the asari).


	164. Genocide

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Before you deal with our children…" What was that, in the Rachni Queen's voice? She sounded almost casual, as though asking about the next 'new' flavor of coffee aboard ship. "We stand before you. What will you sing?"

Shepard opened her mouth, then closed it. Here it was, the moment she had not wanted to face. She knew she could not procrastinate, that if she had not wanted to deal with this choice she would have utilized the tanks of what looked like acid on the queen's enclosure before the thing had a chance to speak up.

But she hadn't, and now she had to make a decision more complex than any made by a termite inspector at a contaminated site.

"Will you release us?" No pressure, no persuasion in the Queen's tone. "Are we to fade away once more?"

She _had_ to stop thinking of the Rachni Queen as a giant cockroach—_clearly_ the thing was sapient. Sapient, and aware that Shepard had good reason to silence her (and by extension her species) forever.

"Shepard, those tanks on that enclosure are full of acid. Probably someone's failsafe," Alenko murmured in her ear, his breath warm in the chill air. "They must've installed them for a reason."

"They made a mistake," Liara said softly, her tone distant but steady. She blinked twice, then looked away from the Rachni, making both marines wonder uncomfortably if she hadn't been communicating in some way with the creature. "The krogan were allowed to go too far—this is a chance for us to atone!"

There was the crux of the matter; both marines knew it. In her current mindset, Liara might give the devil himself a second chance—the chance her mother had been denied.

"She's done nothing to us," Liara looked back to the Rachni Queen. "And…why spend so much time in talk if she meant to?" She put a blue hand on the tank, falling silent again.

Shepard sighed: jaded as she was, she could answer Liara's question. 'To buy time.' But for what? Logic didn't bear that answer out. If the Rachni Queen _could_ get loose, she would have, by now. And…

…she was the last.

Could she, Shepard, look this sapient in the eye and, with the push of a button, commit genocide? She had an entire species in her hand. The consequences of her choice, either way, were…

…some days it paid not to go outside.

"Your companions hear the truth." No deprecation, simply a statement. The calm acceptance of one fate or another made Shepard's neck itch, as though a batarian was lining up a shot on her. "Will you free us? Or return our people to the silence of memory?"

Shepard's brows knit together. "If I let you live…will you attack other races again?"

The one eye she could see opened wide, and the Rachni Queen stiffened. "No!" The words came out quickly, almost fearfully—but not fear of death, fear conjured up from memories. "We…_I_…" the pronoun seemed forced out of her, "…do not know what happened in the War. We only heard discordance. Songs the color of oily shadows."

Shepard looked down from the Rachni Queen, something twinging in her mind like a silent alarm. Was she growing paranoid?

"We would seek a hidden place, to teach our children harmony. If they understood then, perhaps, we would return."

"You mentioned the War…you're a survivor?" It was impossible to read the Rachni Queen the way she might an asari or any of the other bipedal creatures: they, at least, shared some of the same body language. The Rachni Queen was inscrutable in this.

"We were only an egg, hearing Mother cry in our dreams. A tone from space hushed one voice after another." Shepard took a slow breath and, without realizing it, held it. "It _forced_ the singers to resonate with its own sour, yellow note."

A quick glance at Alenko and Liara revealed interest but not comprehension. They didn't understand; they didn't see the thread…

_Was_ she paranoid? If she was, they were all in trouble.

But if she wasn't…then it sounded as though _something_ had _influenced_ the rachni. Her eyes slid to Benezia; she remembered the description of Sovereign's scream in the skies over Eden Prime.

But what would indoctrinating the rachni do? What was the end…

…the krogan. She couldn't see the entire pattern, but she glimpsed it. The question remained _why_? What did the Reapers want now? And if they had interfered all those centuries ago why had they just…gone away again?

Shepard's head began to ache, the Cipher hissing in her ears. Maybe _that_ was where some of her certainty came from. Who knew what all that information sloshing around in her skull might be useful for? If it would let her understand the beacon's message…why not contribute to the certainty of supposition?

Too many unknowns…

"…then we awoke in this place. The last echoes of those who came out from the Singing Planet. The sky…is silent."

The words struck a chord with Shepard: it seemed to conjure up her impressions of Mindoir. _The sky is silent_. There was nothing there, nothing to go back to, everything that mattered was dead.

"You can go." If there was the slightest chance the rachni were destroyed through Reaper machinations… But it was a frightening choice. What if she was wrong? What if the bug could lie like a pro, capitalize on the fact that Shepard couldn't read her?

"You would give us the chance to compose anew?" Hope, and surprise at this unexpected mercy.

Shepard nodded, her eyes returning to the Rachni Queen's.

"We will _remember_. We will _sing_ of your forgiveness to our children." But the words seemed genuine in a way Shepard could not articulate.

Shepard flipped the switch to open the tank, to release the Rachni Queen from her glass prison. Even with her grave doubts…she found them preferable to the guilt she would feel over destroying an entire species.


	165. Purge

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard knew this was a dangerous situation. She knew that, in her current state, Liara could probably hang tough for several hours—the right mix of grief and necessity could do that—but all the same, she would rather get the asari off this money-mad ice cube.

"I might have only got as far as high school biology…" Dummy biology, though she didn't say so, "But everyone's thinking it, so I'll say it…" Shepard glanced at Alenko, then back to the scientist. "Don't you need a _male_ to get hatch-able eggs?"

That was certainly the case with _most_ species labeled 'sapient'.

Nervous laughter from her fellow crewmen. Shepard was sure Alenko knew more about the subject than she—surely being a medic involved _something_ from that quarter. Liara could laugh because…well, she was an asari. They just shook up their DNA. With their minds.

The scientist was not amused, though no one could really blame him. His was not an enviable position. "Queens are born carrying the genetic code of their fathers. Eggs are carried away from the colony to hatch alone. Queens can lay eggs in hours." Shepard's stomach dropped. "And have a colony in days." Her heart dropped to huddle with her stomach. "This is how they spread so quickly."

Shepard's lips tightened against her teeth. Please, please, _please_ let that giant cockroach be honest! Otherwise she, Shepard, might need to turn in her Spectre badge _and_ her commission, and take up the life of a hermit, avoiding all contact with sapients, at risk of doing something monumentally devastating through good intentions.

…sort of…like Saren.

"Obviously that didn't work," Liara noted grimly.

"This was exactly the _wrong_ thing to do," the scientist admitted. "I am thinking that without the Queen, rachni do not develop properly."

"Deprived of their only parent, what child would?" Liara demanded.

Shepard found the…naiveté…of the sentiment reassuring. At least Liara had some illusions left. Or maybe this was one in what would be a series of case-by-case assessments.

"I hate to push, but we need to get things moving," Shepard broke in. Part of her would have liked to grill the scientist about the rachni—just in case she ended up playing termite inspector later—but now wasn't the time.

Too many creepy-crawlies, and she did _not_ mean the rachni alone.

"These rachni are beyond saving. It is a sad thing, but they must be euthanized."

Liara scowled, clearly of the opinion that the 'sad thing' was _not_ the same thing for the two sides of this conversation. From what she could tell, all he saw was wasted research.

"I am thinking that the neutron purge must be set off."

"How do you feel about playing bomb squad today?" Shepard asked Alenko.

Alenko snorted. "The way I always feel about playing bomb squad: as long as I can open my own barbecue sauce bottle when we're done…"

Shepard's mouth puckered as she fought the smile the words conjured. It was a very good, across-the-board sentiment.

"No, nothing like that," the scientist shook his head, "it generates a burst of neutron radiation. Kills everything within the station." Shepard gestured for the scientist to continue when he stopped speaking. What was he waiting for? Her to make a comment?

With Liara present, it didn't seem advisable to make a comment about everyone wearing their lead underwear, lest the asari think they were still laughing at her.

"Arming controls are in there," he motioned to a door at the far end of the room. "All you do is insert the key…" He produced a small key the size of his little finger.

"Did you hear that?" Liara asked Alenko softly, touching his arm, though he couldn't feel the gesture. "Like…little feet?"

"Uh oh…" Alenko bit his lower lip, took several steps to one side, then caught the sound. His eyes fell on a point near the back of the room. "Shepard, we have a problem."

"…then I will give Mira destruct code…"

Shepard jumped as the two biotics flared brilliantly to either side of her. The rachni that burst through the ventilation panel (sending one of its barbed tentacles through the scientist) jerked back, barbs still embedded. Two biotic fields caught the bug, one pulled against the other, and the end result was that the scientist—still on the barbed tentacle, hit the ground, while the rachni itself hung in the air.

"Shit. He's gone," Alenko verified, indicating, by this change in focus, that he was not the one crumpling the rachni like an empty chip bag. He handed Shepard the card with the destruct code on it.

Shepard picked up the keycard, and the three of them hurried into the back room.

"Sounds like this one was scouting…if I can use the word." Liara said, sealing the door behind them. "Damn—they're pouring in…" she swallowed, then spoke more calmly. "Let's hurry. If we have to fight our way out, I don't want to wait until we can be overwhelmed."

"Sounds good to me." Shepard slid the key into the slot, eyes shifting to the station's VI, Mira, when the display popped up.

"Connected. I have full access to the facility and am at your disposal."

"Activate the neutron purge." The chatter of too many rachni made Shepard's blood run cold.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that without proper code authorization."

"Code input: eight-seven-five-zero-two-zero-zero-seven-nine. Code omega local execution." Shepard tucked the card into her web gear.

"Verified. Code omega execution in one hundred and twenty seconds."

Shepard turned to find the biotics blocking the door. Peering between their shoulders she wanted to groan.

"First zombies, now this…why can't we ever go on _clean_ adventures?" Alenko asked, with brevity he did not really feel.

"Better payoff than clean ones." Shepard answered promptly. "Alenko, take the left; Liara, the right," she tapped their respective shoulders, "I'll keep them off our backs. Go!"

Crossing a room never seemed to take so long, but the team made the elevator.


	166. Simple Pleasures

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

A marine learned to live with gang showers. Fortunately, the _Normandy_ afforded bathers a little more privacy, in the form of shoulder-high partitions. It scarcely mattered either way at the moment. With the _Normandy_ still in dock, there was time for Hollywood showers for the ground team. Before even a debriefing could be held, before any sort of think tank formed, Shepard (with Liara close behind) hit the women's showers, hot water on _hot_.

Shepard reached up, found the catch of the band that held her hair in its regulation bun, and pulled it out, tugging this way and that to get it to release her hair. The brown mass fell in complete disarray and disorder around her shoulders before the soothing hot water smoothed it into a smooth, wet mass.

Liara heard Shepard put the band on the partition with a sigh. Hair sometimes seemed such an inconvenient thing. She was glad she did not have to worry about keeping hair clean, trimmed, colored, or anything like that.

Steam poured from the showerhead, the water nearly scalding Shepard's skin, turning it bright pink. The point of boiling herself was that the water was still _hot_ when it reached her poor, half-frozen toes. Shepard leaned forward, her forearms on the wall, letting the stream of hot water gush onto her neck and back. A long, hot shower could only happen when the ship was in dock—otherwise, water conservation practices remained in effect. Everyone took advantage of the ship being in port.

"If I never see another snowflake again, it'll be too soon." Shepard shivered, glad the overall room was small enough that one or two showers could make the whole place warm and humid. Steam continued drifting lazily about the lights overhead. Forget any comfortable notions about what one could do when snowed in.

After Noveria, she never wanted to _hear_ the word 'snow' as long as she lived.

The cold alone made her collarbone, fractured in a training accident, _ache. _It _still_ ached, even though the hot water was doing its job. She wondered if it was psychological, as was the sense of bone-deep cold she had felt before getting under the hot water. The mind was a funny thing, after all.

Look at spacer's syndrome.

Liara, with the water's heat more moderated than Shepard, nodded her agreement to the sentiment, though the commander's mumbled thought was plainly for Shepard's benefit alone. She had never expected to end up so cold. Even through armor, its thermal mesh underlay, and cold-weather gear, the frigid air bit through it all. Part of it was psychological, but most of it was not. It amazed her that the scientists and soldiers at the research station had not frozen to death in those cold, drafty halls, or ended up with frostbite.

Liara closed her eyes letting the water pounding against her skin as the inescapable facts of the mission began to coagulate in her mind. Benezia was dead. The thought seemed to have frozen something in her, something the water could not touch. Somehow, it made the simple pleasure of standing beneath the steamy spray that much more precious by comparison—though she could not say why this was. Perhaps she simply had the wrong words for the sentiment…she was an archaeologist, not a student of language or writing.

Still, as nice as it was to shower off after a long, hard day in the field, with grime and mud caked up on her skin, this was in some ways better. The psychological comfort of the warmth helped her think, and she had a lot of thinking to do right now.

Shepard could honestly understand heat making a person sweaty. But she could not, for the life of her, fathom why when feet got too cold, they should get sweaty too. She began lathering up her hair, mostly for something to do as she pondered.

She should have stuck to keeping her mind on her shampoo. "Oh…" she stifled a string of mild expletives as the soap slipped one thin rivulet down from her hair and into her eyes.

Liara jumped, and resisted laughing—which she had not thought herself capable of doing at that particular time—as she watched Shepard's head and face, her hair covered in white suds, with one hand poised to rub her eyes and the other groping for the shower head.

Presumably so she would not slip and fall as she flailed.

"Argh…" Shepard blew water (and more suds) from her lips. She hated the taste of shampoo…who didn't, really? Her mental grousing stopped as she pushed her face into the water. A sound from Liara's direction prompted her to pull her head free from the spray.

The asari had both hands over her mouth, stifling a pained giggle, but it was a giggle nonetheless. Shepard had not expected laughter from her for some time yet. She blew water off her mouth again, knowing what a simple pleasure being able to laugh at someone else's silly-looking actions was, after the death of a loved one.

Like laughing when O'Conner finally gave up on getting into her apartment when she locked herself out and called in the cavalry. Laughter was a simple pleasure…but weren't the simple ones the most important?

"Yeah, yeah…laugh it up, Doc."

Liara knew Shepard did not mean to imitate Chief Williams, but she certainly did so, which left Liara snickering, though for a completely different reason. Humans really did rub off on one another.

But, as was the nature of simple pleasures in the face of un-dealt-with troubles, the amusement was short lived. Liara _knew_ Shepard was trying to find the words to say to help, but the Commander mercifully kept quiet. Liara wanted time to sort this out on her own. Yes, she was sorry Benezia was dead…but was that brainwashed husk really Benezia anymore?

The quandary effectively squelched any remaining humor, nearly removing the pleasure of hot water on a psychological chill.

Nearly.


	167. Stonewall

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Commander Shepard. We've been hearing disturbing rumors from Noveria," the turian Councilor crossed his arms in an attitude of 'we're waiting'.

"Lady Benezia is dead. We're bringing her back to the Citadel, in compliance with her next of kin's wishes." Shepard had no intention of mentioning the rachni, not right now at least. Not _ever_ if she had her way…well, the Council could know about the dead ones, but she did not want them knowing there was a live Rachni queen scuttling around on Noveria.

Most of what went on at Peak 15 would remain classified, a corporate mess for months, if not years. Thank goodness Anoleis' arrest would keep things complicated. The complications and the corporate mire would keep the _full_ of any story from leaking…but geth, Rachni, dead Matriarchs, and Spectres shooting up Port Hanshan's facilities would not reassure investors.

"Dead?" the asari asked sharply, her brow wrinkling as she lifted her 'eyebrows'.

"Saren was using her, as we expected," Shepard began delicately, speaking slowly as she felt her way across thin ice. This 'indoctrination' was enough to make her nervous, and part of her feared if the Council got hold of the concept without someone who understood it better than Shepard did at present they would be too happy to think that indoctrination had something to do with the Prothean beacon, which had scrambled not only Saren's brain but apparently hers as well.

They would prefer easy answers to the reality Shepard was watching emerge. Shepard would prefer easy answers too, but knew she could not close her eyes and pretend not to see dark shape on the horizon. A dark shape that looked uncomfortably like a synthetic squid.

"In the end, she did what she could for us, to make up for her mistakes. She died a free woman, not as a pawn." It was as true as it was a kind thing to say.

"I…see…" the asari councilor collected herself quickly. "I will make the necessary arrangements for the removal of the body from your ship."

"Thank you, Madame Councilor. Dr. T'Soni would undoubtedly wish me to pass along her gratitude as well." She noticed no one asked about how Liara was coping.

"And Saren?" the salarian demanded.

"As yet unaccounted for. If I may ask, Councilors, why weren't Saren's assets frozen? I was under the impression that this Council wished him apprehended. It's difficult to track down a Spectre, especially when his financial resources are available and seemingly limitless." Shepard's eyes bored into the holographic displays, the chill over delivering news of Benezia's death thawing as her bone of contention worked its way to the surface.

"Saren no longer has…" the turian Councilor began hotly.

"The assets provided by this Council were stripped…" the asari spoke at the same time.

"Sir, Madame," Shepard's voice cut like a laser, "I was _not_ suggesting the Council was funding him. There was simply no attempt made to find and freeze his assets." She was playing a dangerous game, and knew she was open to counter-accusations such an action was _her _job. "The resources might, of course, have been Lady Benezia's…but Administrator Anoleis indicated quite clearly that _Saren _was the shareholder, the man with the money. Benezia was just his executor." Shepard grit her teeth. "Is there anything I should know, Councilors?"

"We will, of course, want a report on this mission," the turian councilor covered for his compatriots.

The asari eyed Shepard closely, as though trying to read her mind.

Shepard inclined her head. "Of course, Councilor. You may have my report as soon as I've finished it."

"And when might we expect that?" The salarian asked blandly.

"I'm not entirely certain, Councilor…as soon as Binary Helix's officer on Noveria accedes to my request for all records pertaining to Saren's and his late executor's activities. Fortunately, Noveria's IA is conducting investigations, so having his assets here frozen was easier than I originally expected. I doubt I've cut the lead head off this hydra, but every little bit helps."

Garrus was right: the Council was still protecting him, to some extent, even if only by leaving him alone. If the Council had as poor a hold on their Spectres as they sometimes implied, then they were three-times fools and hardly worth the air they were sucking.

No, they knew _much_ more than they indicated. They simply wanted hands off: they did not believe her about the Reapers, so they only saw the threat Saren represented…and if she, Shepard, failed they could line up another Spectre to handle the mission.

A Spectre more to their liking.

"Do _you_ have anything else you'd to tell us?" The turian councilor turned Shepard's words back on her. "Now would be the time to share."

"I'm sorry, Councilor, you're breaking up." She was breaking the promise she made herself: she had promised not to call them and then hang up halfway through the conversation. It was unprofessional. However, she found she did not care. She was sick and tired of games.

"Breaking up…?" The turian's mandibles flared, rightly thinking Shepard was diplomatic hanging up on them.

"Joker! Hold that line, don't lose the…!"

The FTL communication cut, leaving Shepard alone in the silent room.

"_Sorry, Commander. It's the damndest thing…I think we have _snow_ in the communication arrays_." Joker announced with mock sobriety.

"You know how it is, Joker: we get zero bars in deep space." She would have to go back to the Citadel. She's catch a lot of flak for hanging up on the Council, but it was worth it, in this case.

They never asked for reports. She suspected it was just a way to derail the conversation. Two could play at that game.

"_Zero bars, huh? That really sucks. You sure you don't want to stop somewhere along the way? You know, somewhere warm? This place was giving _me_ frostbite and I've been_…"

"Sitting here while Alenko, Liara, and I waded through snow, bugs, and bureaucracy. You'll live, Joker."


	168. Fizzy Drinks

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard did not want to have the talk about losing family with Liara.

No, that was not true, Shepard corrected herself. She did not want to have that talk with _anyone_, because she knew she had not wanted anyone to have that talk with her.

Which actually made her the best candidate, and to not say something would be heartless, which Shepard was not. She was used to working with people she dubbed 'kids', using their length of service as a reference. In this case, it was socially accurate, by Liara's own admission.

Dr. Chakwas looked up when Shepard entered the medbay. Shepard pointed at the back room, and Dr. Chakwas nodded understandingly, before going back to the screen she was reading.

Shepard knocked on the wall, as she inched into Liara's small space.

Liara scooted back in her chair, having expected this. "Shepard?"

Shepard stepped in. "I…"

Liara did not need asari abilities to see how uncomfortable Shepard was. She knew Shepard had lost her own family, years ago. It made sense for her to want to say something, only there was nothing to say. She, Liara, was resigned, having already accepted the facts easily enough. There was no need for Shepard to say anything at all—though Liara appreciated the courtesy.

Shepard remained though, as did the fact that the talk would be harder for her than for Liara. "If you're here to talk about Benezia," Liara took the burden of finding words from Shepard, "you needn't. I prefer to remember her as she was rather than what…what she became."

Truthfully, knowing Benezia's body was down in the cargo hold frightened Liara more than a little. She was grateful for Shepard's meticulousness in finding out where Benezia's remains should go and then getting them there, but still…

"All right. I understand that." Shepard turned and left Liara to herself.

Liara wondered if she ought to have found a gentler way of explaining how it was better to remember Benezia before all this unpleasantness, but could not think how she could have. She had just gotten to the point of worrying she might have offended Shepard, or hurt the woman's feelings, when Shepard returned unexpectedly.

Shepard announced herself this time by setting a cold bottle of Astro Fizz by Liara's elbow, before popping the other one open herself.

Liara shifted in her chair as Shepard perched on one of the counters. "To the ones who have gone on." She raised her bottle, looking somber.

Liara took two tries to pop the bottle open, nearly spraying herself with the contents, before imitating Shepard.

She nearly spat the fizzy contents back out.

Liara's expression as she looked at the bottle was nothing short of hilarious. "That bad, huh?" Shepard chortled.

"No it's just…" It was _sweet_, and slightly acidic. Though she rather liked the bubbles, it had a strange aftertaste. She took another sip. "Is it…an acquired taste?"

"I think so, but," Shepard shrugged. "Usually something like this calls for booze, but this is an Alliance ship, and I don't drink."

Liara somehow understood that 'don't' in this context meant 'can't', but did not know why.

Shepard slouched against the wall.

"You lost your parents, did you not?"

"Yeah." Shepard looked up. "A long time ago."

Liara looked back to the Prothean artifact she was studying, prodding it moodily with a finger, then got up, and sat on the counter, similar to how Shepard was. With a deep breath, she took a big swig of Astro Fizz, trying to find out what fascination it held for Shepard. She couldn't see it herself.

Though with humans, they might have actually been joking about the coffee, and she would have known no better.

"How?" She knew, sketchily, but since they were on the subject…

Shepard took another fortifying swig of the soft drink, half wishing it were something stronger. "They were killed, when the batarians raided Mindoir." She could recite how many years, months, weeks, and days had passed since it happened, but felt perhaps that would not be the best thing to say right now.

"Badly, I take it."

Not a question. Liara did that often—making a question a statement. Shepard had to wonder how much and how often Liara tried to sift her thoughts. She certainly did not like it when asari—any asari—had to prod her mind for one reason or another. It made her hypersensitive to the uncomfortable way they had of assessing people, and then voicing those assessments.

"My father…it was ugly. I didn't see the others. I didn't want their bodies back." It sounded worse than it was, because Shepard could not voice the justifications of a traumatized sixteen-year-old.

No one wanted to see parents' faces melted like marshmallows left too long in a reheater. No one wanted to see the charred remnants of younger siblings, stiff like statues made of cardboard, blackend and burned…

Shepard's dark thoughts hung in the air around her, likely as perceptible to humans as to asari.

"Should I come back later?" Williams asked, sticking her head in. Her words were vaguely facetious, but her expression and tone indicated seriousness, a crinkle between her eyebrows evidencing concern.

"You're a member of the lost parents club. Grab an Astro Fizz and join in," Shepard answered reservedly, finishing her soda.

"You know I hate that stuff, Skipper." But Williams joined Shepard on the counter, and Liara marked the unseen delineation of personal space the two women maintained. Humans liked more space personal space than asari did.

Shepard in particular did not like feeling crowded…unless, Liara knew, Lieutenant Alenko was doing the crowding. Most of the humans missed it, but she could see the subtleties. They were like tendrils from two plants inching towards each other, slowly but surely.

"Thank you, Commander," Liara finally stated, once her Astro-Fizz was empty, "Chief Williams."

"No problem." Shepard twisted the lid onto the bottle, lobbing both into a nearby trashcan as Williams gave a nonchalant shrug.


	169. One of Those Things

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard and Liara sat on the bench facing the gear lockers, both wearing expressions varying in degrees of disgust and resignation. The storms on Noveria had forced them to stay a few days longer than anyone intended. It had also given the things caught in boot treads time to harden into a sort of bio-cement.

Even now, Shepard could hear the distant voices of old drill instructors screaming about caring for one's gear, lest said gear take offense and fail when it was most needed.

In the few days since Benezia's death, Shepard found Liara easier to talk to, perhaps because now that there was some common ground: they had both lost family, and lost them none too gently. They would, Shepard decided, probably never be buddy-buddy—not like she and Williams—but the new ease of communication helped.

"You know, Commander—I begin to think I am not cut out for groundside missions."

"Why's that?" Shepard produced a small screwdriver and began gouging what she eloquently called 'rachni squishings' out of her boot treads.

Liara gave Shepard an assessing look. Shepard's drift indicated that she was half joking, half serious, so she answered in her best mock-serious, very bookish tone. "On the first mission, the surface of a planet melted right under our feet and you nearly fell into it." Even now Liara could scarcely believe that they had all survived that.

"And I _did_ buy Alenko that beer," Shepard put in with a grin. "Hey." She handed Liara another screwdriver from her kit, so Liara could pry her own accumulated squishings loose more easily.

Liara accepted the screwdriver and shifted. It was better than using her fingernails. "Then we landed on a planet where the people were contaminated by Thorian spores, and they eventually attacked the ship…"

"Yeah. The ground team had to get new armor so we could get the smell out." And, Shepard added silently, she had her mind turned into jelly by an asari downloading the Prothean Cipher into her head, which she then she slammed against the floor of the showers before Liara tried the asari hoodoo.

Feros was a painful trip.

"...and then we dropped out of the ship in a landrover."

"That's pretty routine." And to think Shepard had once been afraid of mako drops.

Liara shook her head, catching her tongue between her teeth as she took a moment to scrape at a patch of goo she could not identify: it was _not _squished rachni hatchlings. "And now, we go to a corporate planet…"

"Yeah," Shepard grimaced. Noveria was a true corporate pisshole.

"...you kick in the door," Shepard grinned in that 'all in a day's work' fashion, "pick a fight with armed security personnel…" both were now smiling in an 'I can't believe we really did that' fashion, though for different reasons, "expose a corrupt corporate officer as the slug he is…"

Shepard laughed aloud, switching to her other boot. When Liara put it like that, it sounded like a satire of an action movie. A _cheap_ action movie. The very best kind.

"…drive us along a geth-infested frozen road…"

"I still deny that I was trying to kill us," Shepard added quickly.

Liara made a show of ignoring the statement, reassured by Shepard's drift pulsing vibrant shades of magenta and orange. "Then you took us wading through Rachni and their 'squishings' from one side of an ice cube of an industrial complex to the other." She paused, then shrugged. "I don't think they'll ever get that mess out of Port Hanshan's carpets, Commander."

Shepard hunched over, laughing at this. "When you put it like that, it _does_ sound kind of silly."

"Silly is _not_ the word," Liara said devoutly. "So you see, I don't think I am a good candidate for groundside missions."

"I dunno," Shepard teased, "you slammed your fair share of people around, did a little heavy lifting, dropped a few crates on people's heads…"

It was Liara's turn to laugh, though more reservedly than Shepard. There was still a sense of restraint in Shepard's drift, but much of the awkward tension of a career soldier addressing a civilian 'kid' was gone. "That was necessity—_not_ a hobby." After a pause, during which both women worked diligently, Liara spoke again. "…Shepard?" When Shepard did not protest the informal address, Liara continued: "What was your first mission like?"

"Dirty. It sucked." Shepard could still hear O'Conner complaining about the rain, _just_ before the bullets started flying. "We hit dirt in the rain. O'Conner and I thought we'd never get all that mud off us. Of course...we never saw anything like _this_." She waved illustratively to the accumulated mess.

Liara scowled as she began prying squishings loose again. "I see. So filthy missions…"

"…are a regular part of the job," Shepard finished.

"That being the case, I still have not changed my mind. I don't think I'm ground team material."

"You sure?"

"Commander," Liara assumed her most dignified tone, which contrasted with her smile. "I am an archaeologist. I have seen almost every sort of inclement weather, or grime the galaxy has to offer. I don't mind it while I'm working at a dig site, but I have _never _seen anything like the _crap _I'm scraping off my boots right now. And I hope I never will again. It's _foul_."

And she did not like the fighting, preferring finding corpses to making them.

Shepard smiled at the use of the word 'crap' from the so prim and proper archaeologist, despite the humorous context of the last little speech. "That's why you'd be a good candidate for a ground team."

Liara blinked.

Shepard got to her feet, having finished cleaning the worst of the grime off her boots. Seeing Liara's expression, she shrugged. "Well, you already know crap in your boots is just one of those things."

"I see recruitment is down."

Shepard froze, then her drift turned acid, eye-searing green, an atomic explosion of delight at an excellent riposte.


	170. Rated

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

To Spectre Requisitions Agent Livion Urvyle, C-Sec Academy, the Citadel,

Please find enclosed the requested Spectre requisitions feedback forms (Form-SGR-2390) from Spectre J. Shepard and support crew.

Most equipment is still functioning and in decent order, despite the overly-frigid nature of the last mission. If the manufacturers want endorsements this time, there's a little more legwork involved, please see below.

Thank you for your support, and the excellent equipment,

Commander J. Shepard, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

PS: You know, Livion, I think the crew's getting tired of filling out these forms _every _time we go on a major mission. I know _I_ am. Can we just do one form for each piece of equipment, and supplement only as needed? It'd cut down on the paperwork, and we're really busy. The LT has a couple suggestions, I think, go ahead and skip down to his first, they're at the bottom of the stack.

(I swear, we write more reports than we shoot enemies. I begin to fear for the state of the galaxy.)

Just a question. Let me know, ASAP.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Hanhe-Kedar Shadow Works

Recipient: J. Shepard

Item: Janissary (H-M), Spectre Grade (Replacement)

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 3/5

Comments: I was so glad to find one of these in my size when I was in requisitions last that I forgot to ask about resilience to environmental conditions. It was a massive, massive mistake, and I can assure you I won't be making it again. This thing is _not_ rated for sub-zero temperatures. It would be nice if the mesh was a little tighter weave, help keep some of that wind out.

I know some companies put thought into that, which is why I'm suggesting it to HKSW—I love their products, but this isn't exactly the army. Also, this thing doesn't handle generic, alternate shielding mods very gracefully, though the plates are _extremely_ resistant to…

…never mind what to. It's a galactic security thing, just know that it worked when I needed it. Anyway, a little more environmental consideration, and HKSW is good to go.

…just call it space gunk.

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Not available

Recipient: Dr. Liara T'Soni

Item: It's…armor…. (I'm not used to filling these forms out)

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments:

...it fits well. It's very comfortable, and it certainly does its job in…well, the Commander classifies it as 'an extreme circumstance'. I really wish I knew what you are looking to hear in this report. It is fairly cold-resistant, not very wind resistant (but there is cold-weather gear to go over it, so I do not see why this should matter…except that the wind _does_ go through the mesh; it is very uncomfortable. (The cold wind, not the mesh, the fit _is_ excellent.)) It does seem to drain shield batteries fairly quickly…how many bullets is this thing supposed to take before it starts really running down? I did not think the shooting was _that_ bad…

~Dr. L. T'Soni

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer: Not available

Recipient: Dr. Liara T'Soni

Item: It's a pistol—the Commander is busy, or I would ask her which one

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 5/5

Comments:

As previously stated, this equipment is good. Exceptionally so, though I am afraid I have very little basis for comparison. My work has, previously, been scientific, not militaristic. We use fewer guns, far fewer grenades, and definitely a lot less armor.

I did not get as much use out of the pistol as some would think, however. I would like to humbly suggest an increase in the capacity of the heat sink. Some of us are not marksmen, and this weapon highlights that fact painfully. Dangerously, one might go so far as to say. Also, it is a bit…heavy. Would there, possibly, be anyway to lighten the weapon a few grams? For those of us who are not particularly strong in the wrist, I mean. If I were not a biotic, this weapon would prove quite inadequate for the situation in which we found ourselves.

I like the incendiary ammunition, however. _That_ is an excellent touch. You have my thanks,

~Dr. L. T'Soni

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer:

Recipient: Lt. Kaidan M. Alenko

Item: _Armor, no manufacturer's marks _

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 4/5

Comments: It'll stop bullets and biological projectiles. It's not so great in sub-zero temperatures, but you've probably heard all about that from Shepard and Dr. T'Soni, so I won't say it again. The shielding's great on this one—didn't need to change anything major, just tweak the settings a bit. It's a little weird that this one came with a detachable mesh hood—I've never heard of something like that, but I've hung onto it. Is there any reading material about that? You never know when it might be useful…it might be interesting to find out when and where that might be, though (or it might not, depending on how you look at it).

-J-

Spectre Gear Requisitions Feedback (Form SGR-2390)

Manufacturer:

Recipient: Lt. Kaidan M. Alenko

Item: Pistol, no manufacturer's marks

Signatory: J. Shepard

Rating: 4/5

Comments: Don't you think all these reports are overkill? Let me just break it down, so you I don't have to write it and you don't have to read so much. It must be pretty boring going over a dozen of these or so every single time Shepard sends them—and when they all say more or less the same thing. How about we let you know when stuff _doesn't_ work? Wouldn't that be more useful? Just wondering.

The gun works fine, there have been no jams, no misfires, no overheating when it's not supposed to. The grip is fine, the kick is fine, it's all fine…it _could _use a manufacturer's mark, though. I had the thing in a million pieces when I cleaned it last, and there was _nothing_ to identify it.


	171. Cards

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"We are _out_ of here!" Shepard announced with exhausted relief as she flung herself into the chair beside Alenko.

Alenko exhaled with relief—getting away from Noveria would be a delight in itself. He wasn't sure what the holdup was—and Shepard had not told anyone—but apparently the hitch was resolved. "Best news I've had all day."

"The time has come," Shepard announced, frowning at the game of solitaire on the table..

"What time is that?" She had changed her preferred spot. Usually she sat across from him. Then again, her tone hinted that she had something important on her mind, and if so she probably did not want to worry the crew. She was like that.

"I've got to ask…why do you know _anything_ about hotwiring cars? They teach that at scout camp, now?" she ventured a small smile that was very much at odds with her teasing tone.

"Oh…that…" Alenko looked away, plucked a card from his solitaire game, and began to biotically spin it.

Shepard, perhaps in a combination of relief at finally escaping the frigid planet and general weariness, boldly reached over, plucked the card from the field…and the other side of her mouth rose, the side not quirked by that odd little scar, which removed the tentative quality of her smile.

He was glad she was comfortable. Shepard did not ask personal questions very often, preferring to use leading statements.

He would have to scramble to find a personal question for her—it was, after all, only fair, and Shepard did tend to honor the 'fair's fair' doctrine of sharing non-critical information.

"I won't be distracted," she stated primly.

"Wasn't trying to distract you." His tone hinted that if he _did_ try he certainly wouldn't use a biotic parlor trick to do it. "And no, they don't teach you that at scout camp. In fact…" he plucked the card back from her, "it's probably frowned upon."

"'Probably'?"

"Shepard, I was out of scout camp before I learned how to drive." He could almost count down the seconds before she swerved off the road that led to Brain Camp.

"Ah, what they don't know, huh?" It was a discrete check to make sure he understood that she still was joking. He couldn't blame her for that: it was easy to take her seriously on all points. Clearly he was meant to take her only half seriously.

Maybe, in addition to escaping Noveria _and _being tired, she got her favorite MRE for dinner.

"Okay—hotwiring a car." Alenko frowned, and began to spin the card again as he considered. "I had this…buddy…" Shepard picked a card out of the deck as she listened. "When I was in junior high—his dad was a friend my dad's, so we saw a lot of each other. And he was old enough to drive on his own. So one day we were out doing something…"

Shepard's mouth curved into a smile, filling in the blanks. He wondered what she was filling the blanks _with_, before remembering that she'd had an older brother at one point.

"We're in the parking lot, and he says to me: 'hey, kid, you ever hotwire a car?'. Well, I look at him like, he's crazy…"

"Of course you did," Shepard snickered and—as though hoping he wouldn't notice the sneaky gesture, slipped the card she held into the biotic field, as though putting a book in a bookcase.

She _must _be tired if she thought she was being subtle.

He changed the positioning of his fingers and made the cards revolve around one another without seeming to take his attention off his story. Her fascination with biotic parlor tricks never made him feel like a freak, or as though he'd done anything particularly unusual. Perhaps it was because she never asked for demonstrations, perhaps because she showed more interest in the non-practical applications than the combat-oriented ones.

"So he says 'Come on, Kaidan, it'll come in handy at least once in your life—you ought to know how'. I didn't think so, but you know…" he ducked his head, a little shamefacedly, "when you're in junior high, and hanging out with one of the 'big kids'…" he waved, which made the cards wobble. and Shepard, eyes that never left his face, slipped a third card into the biotic field.

Accepting that this was, more or less, the end of the story, Shepard considered before asking an unprecedented second personal question. Or, at least, Alenko felt it was unprecedented. "Did it ever come in handy?"

"Actually yes," he laughed at a memory he'd almost forgotten until now. "I had to hotwire my own car…"

"You lost your keys." The astute declaration jerked his attention from the biotic field, making the cards circle like children around a maypole—while his attention was diverted, she slipped in another card, this time smiling with a sort of unguarded pleasure.

She had really thawed out, if the pun was pardonable. Or...since this was a little unusual behavior from her...perhaps she was lonely. He understood that well enough.

"At the commissary—no one knew anything, so I figured I'd go home—before my ice cream melted."

"Good move."

"So I wired the car…" he stopped, and not because she had added another card to the growing parade of them. He rotated the cards ninety degrees, so they looked like a rolling barrel. "And I got pulled over by the SPs for _speeding."_

Shepard opened her mouth, caught between commiseration, horror, and hilarity. "Uh oh…"

"Yeah…speeding in a hot wired car. Lucky me: my registration matched the ID scan. The SPs thought it was funny so…slap on the wrist." He shrugged, grinning at the memory. "My turn."

"Your turn?" Shepard stopped halfway through adding another card.

"Mm-hmm." Alenko took the card from her and—rotating the cards to they stood longways—added the last card to the top, making it spin counter to the others. "What's with the rib fixation, Shepard?"


	172. KnuckleBuster

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The grinding whine coming from the Mako's engine compartment was not what anyone wanted to hear. Up in the turret, Alenko slumped forward. He _knew_ this thing would break on them, one of these days. Wasn't it somewhere in the warranty that a marine could drive this thing off a cliff _and_ down a mountainside before it started to have problems?

"Well, at least it didn't crap out during the drop," Shepard grunted, turning the engine off. "Helmets," she prompted before cuing the radio. "Joker, we're having engine trouble. Keep an eye open."

"_Will do, ma'am."_

"Everyone hooked up?" Shepard asked, after getting her helmet attached with a pressurizing hiss.

"All ready Commander." Garrus glanced out the window. The cold, frozen rocks outside did not look inviting. More than that, the Mako _should not_ be malfunctioning. Hadn't he and the garage crew kept such a careful eye on it, despite everyone detesting the thing? He detested _driving_ it, but even that was only because it was made for a human, not a turian.

"Stay with the gun, Alenko." Shepard shifted so he could see her face, "I don't want anything getting the drop on us."

"Yes ma'am." It sounded reasonable, but reasonability did not make him like the situation. Not that he was particularly mechanically inclined. On the other hand, Garrus was, and Shepard probably remembered a couple things about tractors and the like…which summed up his 'city boy' status.

The wind whipped about, making Shepard glad for her helmet and armor. Even expensive, Spectre-grade armor might let a person get cold, but you rarely froze to death if it was in good, working order. "I can't believe this!" Garrus' voice rumbled in her helmet radio. "How much did your military pay for this thing?"

"Too much," Shepard climbed up on one of the wheels as Garrus popped the hood. "Did you ever see such a hunk of junk in all your life?"

No smoke—a good sign.

Garrus understood quiet comments, such as Shepard's last, were usually not meant for anyone in particular, so he said nothing. Truth be told, there were quite a few hunks of junk floating around during his stint in turian boot camp.

"_Do you think we'll need to recover the Mako?" _Joker asked Alenko via the radio.

Garrus appeared, his expression unreadable between his faceshield and turian features as he hauled the toolbox out from under the passenger seat as though snatching at some idiot's collar.

"I don't know, Joker. I don't hear them swearing so it's probably…"

Via the link connecting him (audio only) to Shepard and Garrus came the sounds of Garrus snapping something in turian. It sounded like swearing to him, before Shepard yelped 'ouch' and spat something unsavory at the engine block. "You know…we just might need to."

-J-

Shepard snatched her hand back. Garrus had located the problem in seconds. Unfortunately, it was a four-handed job, and Shepard's only memory of something similar was hazy at best. At the moment her attempts to follow directions led only as far as causing her knuckles to slip and slam around. The armor muffled the damage, but when her hand _slipped_, her knuckles struck something _hard_. Armor did not remove all fear of busted knuckles.

"This piece is a real knuckle-buster." Garrus never thought he would feel so much disgust for the machine he spent so much time working on. Even turians had to sleep. It had to be the night crew. The rest of the mechanics all averred that the night crew was—by comparison to themselves—incompetent.

What Garrus did not know was that the night crew comprised one man, who sole function was to keep the internal computers calibrated.

Shepard smiled as she successfully completed her part of the operation—with several more busted knuckles. Despite the armor, she was beginning to ache. How embarrassing if working on the truck killed her, and Saren didn't. What a way to represent the human race, she thought with a measure of sarcasm.

-J-

Alenko rotated the turret, keeping a weather eye open. Did thresher maws like it this cold? He somehow doubted it, doubted there was anything on this hunk of rock and ice besides themselves, and ore deposits.

You'd think the Alliance would be willing to let Shepard get on with her Spectre job, instead of routine assignments like this. But it would probably boil down to the same thing as the Council's plans. Everything Shepard did was motivated, or hindered, by someone else's personal agendas.

-J-

Garrus craned over the engine block as Shepard held the light. She had experience working on an engine, revealed in knowing exactly where to put the light. "We're almost done," he assured Shepard, more to break the patient silence than for any other reason.

"Good. It's cold out here."

"You should have brought a jacket, Commander." The sound of Shepard's laugh, stifled but recognizable left Garrus vastly pleased. Human humorous sarcasm was hard to grip, but apparently he was getting the hang of it. Another humanism. They certainly liked to put a spin on their words, all this saying what they did not literally mean. But apparently it worked for them.

"Ow!" Garrus' hand, in his moment of musing distraction, slipped. He shook out his hand, wondering. Everyone called the Mako a knuckle-buster, but until now he never believed them. Things like that were the product of rushing and lack of focus…well, he did not believe _that_ any longer.

"You're all thumbs," Shepard teased.

Garrus finished his task and scowled at Shepard. Forget humanisms. "Let's just get this over with. I think I'm allergic to being out here."

Shepard did not manage to stifle her laugh of approval as she hopped down from her perch. "Do you want to learn to drive this heap too?"

Was _working_ on this piece of crap not enough? _Why_ would he want to get behind the wheel? "No." And he would redouble diagnostics when he got back aboard the _Normandy_.


	173. Peaches

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"All right," Shepard dropped to the ground, pulling her helmet off as she did so. "It's lunchtime." While the weather in this temperate region of this little backwater world left little room for complaint, breakfast _would_ chose 'middle of a mission' to give out. Reconnaissance missions had a habit of spreading across several days, and this one was no exception.

They were waiting, more or less patiently, for an incoming ship. It meant they did not have to look very hard, with the _Normandy_ keeping an eye on the ground traffic. Once the ship was in, the mission would start in earnest—a rescue mission.

She, Garrus, and Tali settled against tree trunks, wearily extracting ration packs from their gear. Waiting around all day was hard work. Too bad the Mako was so loud, or they would have dropped it once things started happening.

But no.

Tali watched Shepard and Garrus numbly open their ration packs, mildly jealous. Nutrition paste may keep her from having to interact with the environment around her, but it was not exactly tasty. It made her wish for her clean room back on the _Normandy_.

Garrus was content to doze in the sun, knowing as well as Shepard did: '_when they tell you to stand, sit down; when they tell you to sit down, take a nap; when they tell you to eat, _eat, _because you don't know when the next chance is coming'. _

Ah, the joys of military life. He knew he had a lot less to complain about than Tali, seeing as how he had real rations.

Shepard could not imagine going through life in an environmental suit. It seemed like something that would breed some kind of weird claustrophobic genetic condition.

Cold rations were not as bad now as they were in times past, but nothing prepackaged in the military was ever extremely good. Still, as Shepard slipped the meal component into the heat source, setting propping it against the nearest tree.

At least this one—randomly pulled from her rucksack—turned out to be one of her favorites.

One had to pick 'favorites' or forever be disappointed, and she liked chicken a la king. When she was first in, no one used it. Apparently the manufacturers were beginning to listen to the poor saps who had to eat this stuff. Especially the ones who had to eat this stuff regularly. Proper reconnaissance teams seemed to develop an unnatural appreciation for the stuff.

Well, familiarity and all.

"So," Garrus' crunched his food before swallowing it in order to finish his sentence, "how do you want to do this?"

"We go in," Shepard extracted her dessert and popped it open with some vim, as though illustrating. "Save the prisoners, and give the criminals the boot." She gave her meal a dark look, putting dessert down. "Slaving bastards." It didn't do to spoil the sweet treat with a raincloud of bad mood.

Garrus nodded, but when Shepard was not looking rolled his eyes. He was hoping for a little more than that. He went back to crunching his equivalent to Shepard's crackers.

Shepard held up the cheese paste, shuddered, and put it back. O'Conner used to eat it straight out of the pack, to Shepard's continuing horror. She had lost all stomach for the stuff after O'Conner's first display of gastronomical fortitude.

Tali leaned back against her tree trunk, closing her eyes. The sunlight penetrating her tinted visor made her face feel a little too warm, but it was not a bad thing. The bad thing was not being able to sit there with an uncovered head as Shepard and Garrus were both doing. With all the flora around here, the air must smell…interesting.

It was unfair, but she kept this sentiment silent. It was not Shepard's fault, or Garrus' that she could not enjoy sunlight on her skin. It was the geth's…and they were mowing through plenty of those. The more the better, she thought grimly as she sucked down another tube of nutrition paste.

"I'm going to go see what they're doing," Garrus rumbled, having wolfed down his rations, only to wait impatiently while the two women continued eating theirs in a more measured fashion. He slithered off when Tali and Shepard both absently waved 'see you later' at him.

"They're just doing the same thing they've _been_ doing. Why can't they get blasted on their own stuff and save us a lot of trouble?" Tali asked moodily. "Have you ever tried to take someone into custody when he's high?"

"Twice. They're unpredictable, I don't like doing it. Rather face bullets," came Shepard's grim response. "They think they're superhuman, and don't know when to give up. You mow down the whole group instead of most of it. No survivors, no answers. No _answers_, no finding hidden caches."

Tali looked down at the grass, tearing some of it up absently as Shepard continued eating steadily. Trust Shepard to have done everything, or to have done enough things so 'everything' seemed to consist only of variations of something she had done. This was Tali's amused assessment, at least.

Shepard smiled in response to Tali's snicker, ignorant of the humor as she broke a corner off the dessert bar, wishing her companions were amino-based. It would make things so much easier on Tali.

And some things in this world ought to be taste-able to everyone. Everyone. Who would have thought something like that could be found in a ration bar—or, perhaps the enjoyment of such a treat came from eating field rations in the first place. You found the positives where you could get them.

The freeze-dried peaches were better, in a lot of ways, than some of the desserts. Exotic foods didn't do too well when they had to sit in their packaging, in all sorts of weather, waiting to be eaten.

As the peaches rehydrated, they brought to mind warm, summery days, somewhere where peaches grew quietly and undisturbed.

Shepard loved peaches.


	174. Signals Crossed

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"_Shepard, you read me_?"

Shepard shifted, peering through her telescope at the base. "I've got you, Garrus. What're you seeing?"

Garrus rumbled in his throat. She could practically see him, lying prone, eye to the scope, his mandibles waving thoughtfully. "_Lot of people in crates. They've got a few boxes—could be Red Sand. You know how the slave trade and that crap go together._"

"Especially with batarians," Shepard mumbled. "Numbers?"

"_Lots—but nothing we can't handle. They're not expecting us, and they need hands free to deal with the shipments. Light arms only…whoa…hold it…"_ A pause during which Garrus must have adjusted his scope. "_Take that back—there's one _big _gun out there…guy behind it looks pretty alert, but I can't get a clear shot at him. Fancy shielding. Tali, can you do anything about it?_"

"_If I can get close enough, yes. But for me to do that, they'll have to be shooting at you. I'd need a distraction_."

"_I love playing bait," _Garrus grumbled, but offered no objections.

"No one's playing bait. Stand by, don't let your trigger-talon get itchy." Shepard disconnected the voice pickup on her radio, before slinking back into the tree cover.

Shepard was quiet longer than Garrus would have liked, but he also suspected that she had made her way over to wherever Tali was. Either way, things were getting _very_ quiet. "_Garrus_," it was Shepard, her voice low and taut.

"I've got you."

"_Good. Tali and I are about to mess with the area's communications. Be ready for it. Also, as soon as that gunner's shields are down, cap him. Don't worry about doing anything else."  
_Garrus chuckled low in his throat, a sound which translated as a resonant buzz in the women's radios. "Anything else? You want me to pick up a thing of ribs, since I'm out taking orders?"

"_Sure_," Tali piped up, "_I'd love a break from nutrition paste_."

"_Looks like you're buying Garrus. Put a slug between all four of his eyes and _I'll _buy."_ Shepard disconnected, as did Tali a moment later.

Garrus stayed where he was. Shepard had just requested a one-in-a-hundred sort of headshot. Well, he liked a challenge. If the shield was down…well, whatever they were planning, he had better be ready. Things tended to move fairly quickly once the ball got rolling. At least, they did around Shepard.

Alarms started going off, the wail of a fire alert blasting through the area. Garrus settled more comfortably on his belly, sighting on the gunner. A bit juvenile, pulling the fire alarms but…

The klaxon changed. It took him a minute to identify it as a ship proximity alert. He forced himself to stay calm, despite a growing worry that this might be more than Shepard and Tali scrambling signals.

The slavers rushed this way and that, trying to move their shipment of Red Sand, no longer sure if it was safer in the bunker or out of it. The noise of people shouting and the slavers yelling joined the mix.

Suddenly, everything went silent.

Garrus' heart dropped. For things to just…cut out like that…

He shook his head sighting through the scope again, talon curled almost lovingly around the trigger. This was just one of Shepard's games, just Tali playing with the mercs' minds. He had to trust that it was…because if it was, and he wandered off to try and help…

The mercs had a signal. He could not tap their radios, but it looked as though someone had caught/seen something. At least, a heavily armed unit wandered off into the undergrowth, while the business of unloading resumed briskly.

Silence. The shields around the gunner stayed up, the mercs in the woods did not come back, the mercs at the bunker continued moving their cargo before heading into the bunker.

Garrus grit his teeth, promising himself to stand by for another ten minutes—no, _five_—before he went to find out what had happened. He was, in this respect (and he knew it) a very poor specimen of the turian species: his attention span for following orders was painfully short, and his choosiness of which orders he wanted to follow frustrating superiors was appaling by turian standards.

"Kth." The soft sound made him jump, but not as much as a sharp hiss would have. Shepard melted out of the trees, settling belly-down beside him.

"What are you doing here?" But he was relieved, all the same.

"We crossed signals—they're getting garbage from Tali over my radio, which is currently attached to some specimen of the local fauna," Shepard answered smugly. "They think they've got a scout from a rival group…the only signal outside our comm. blackout."

"Change of plan?" Plans tended to disintegrate after the first few minutes, no matter what organization one worked with.

"Tali's locking down the bunker." Shepard tugged Garrus' arm, and he followed her back into the undergrowth.

"What about the slaves?"

"Saw enough of this crap on the _Midway_, they'll keep them crated…most of them," she added grimly. "Right now, they're all business, they have to be, since they need to start moving people as soon as they can, in case they get hit. They practically work Alliance interference into their timetables…" Shepard's disgust permeated every word.

"And the ones in the woods?" The plan shaky at best. He was not sure how she intended to get inside, since most of these places did not have windows or back doors.

"Let them play around with the…whatever it is." Shepard smiled grimly. "Forget about them; it's covered."

He thought he could guess why he shouldn't worry. "What about the slaves? The radiers'll shoot them if it looks like we're winning."

"It won't look like we're winning. These guys're amateurs. They handle trafficking switches because they're either new or no good. All in all…"

"…they're stupid…" It was a shaky plan, and not to his taste.

But for the moment, he was a good turian, and followed her lead.


	175. The Boot

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"No, no," Alenko said into the radio, trying not to sneeze as he did so. The forest was so thick with allergens that even squad members without allergies were blinking and sniffling. Williams' eyes were red, his were watery, and Wrex kept snorting like a penned bull at a rodeo. "We got them all—just…" Alenko waved at Wrex, mouthing 'what group?', pointing at the dead mercs.

"Eclipse," Wrex rumbled, holding a merc's helmet in one hand before crushing the metal in a display of brute strength—more for the krogan's own amusement than anyone else's. The krogan laughed and gave it a toss, watching the mangled object bounce off its owner's chest.

"…Eclipse morons. Yes, I'm _sure_." He hoped it was feasible for a band of Eclipse mercs to suddenly turn up, but Wrex would know, seeing how he was a merc himself. The krogan had been around, another reason he was good to have.

"_Great_," announced a harsh, human voice, "_mark the location and get back here. We'll get their gear later._"

"_Right…" _it took a little effort not to sign off in Alliance fashion, and blow their cover. "Well, that's that. Let's go find Shepard."

"Lucky thing these goons," Williams made it a point to step _on_ the chest of one of the dead mercs, rather than over him, "recruit a lot more humans when dealing in this region of space." It made it easier to blend in—especially if it was just by chatter over the radio.

"You'd be surprised, Williams. Mercs don't really belong anywhere, they just go anywhere."

"Well, the place they go and where they belong are the same," Williams retorted, without heat, "under my boot." She paused, to grind her heel suggestively into a dead merc's breastplate.

"I won't argue with that." Alenko shook his head. Anyone who dealt in people's lives belonged under someone's boot themselves—and not the boot of a fellow merc. The boot of someone who had no regard for them, or their style of 'business'. See if they liked it.

Wrex knew what Alenko meant, more or less, since the humans tended to think along the same line. However, it was also amusing to tease the lieutenant. "Wimp."

"Why?" The comment itself did not bother Alenko—it was Wrex being Wrex. The krogan's personality—and obvious delight in torturing him—was something Alenko simply chose to accept.

"Because Shepard's got you _whipped_, and now she's teaching Williams how to do it."

Williams arched her dark eyebrows, looking from Alenko to Wrex and back. Alenko had been taking flak from Wrex for so long, you'd think he would finally be at a place where he could just bounce stuff right back.

Alenko sputtered for a moment, before his dark eyes hardened. "Well," he responded acidly, "at least I'm in good company." Wrex was not the sort of krogan most people expected, being possessed of a great deal of intelligence, even if he was not able to fence with his words. They only way the krogan would miss the implication was if he _chose_ to.

Williams wished Shepard was on the line, she would laugh so hard at this. Since she was not, Williams resolved to keep the details of this conversation, and discuss it the next time Shepard wanted someone to talk to. For a moment Wrex and Alenko stared one another down, then Wrex gave a great bark of laughter, before slapping Alenko forcefully on the back. "Good comeback. Not _great_, but good."

"I'm glad you approve. The base is _that_ way." Alenko rolled his eyes, but took the compliment for what it was. Wrex did not harass everyone—supposedly only people he 'liked'.

"And now he wants me to do his killing for him. You'll never catch a female that way, Alenko." Wrex elbowed the marine as he started forward, not that he minded kicking the door open and going in first. More people to kill.

"Noted."

Williams would have liked to egg one or the other of them on—she didn't have to worry about subtlety since Wrex was involved—the Skipper was waiting. "Hey, fun as it is to watch you two doing this, there's a whole bunker full of mercs, whose butts are waiting for our boots. So let's give 'em the boot."

"You and Shepard…always the taskmasters." Wrex gave a 'hmph', before glancing at Williams. "Still…I could get used to fighting with females—give battles a different...flavor." Then again, Shepard and Williams were _soldiers_, not mercs. That might have something to do with it.

Still, if they ever decided to set up business for themselves, there would be a lot of people with really big problems.

The idea of Shepard as a crime boss was so hilarious Wrex ended up chuckling. She'd put the boot to the current bosses, and then she'd have an entire _army_ for fighting the Reapers.

Maybe he should run that by her and watch her expression shift with disbelief and distaste. It might even give her a couple ideas of her own. Her scruples—those blasted inconvenient things—would prohibit serious cogitation of this wise path…

Then again, it would take too much time to assert her newly-gained authority if she went along with it. Starting a mercenary ring did not happen through diplomacy. Even krogan diplomacy.

"You're just now deciding this?" Funny time for it. Williams had already let go of the long-held notion that krogan were savage brutes without a milligram of intelligence past coherent speech and shooting things. Still, he had been with them how long, and was only _now_ coming to this conclusion?

"No, decided it a while back. I'm just bringing it up now." There was not, to his way of thinking, a better time to bring it up before now.

Alenko shook his head, glad Wrex was happily distracted. Wrex in a good mood meant the krogan would hit the mercenary enclave like a wrecking ball, when they finally got there.


	176. Seeing Red

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The gunfire had died out, leaving dead mercs and stunned silence in its wake. Shepard stood up on the second story, overlooking the main staging room. "Glad you could make it!" She glanced around, moved over to the nearest stack of crates, and jumped from level to level until she got to the main floor. "Have any trouble getting here?"

"No ma'am," Alenko reported briskly joined Shepard. "Left the Mako out of sight, as ordered. We can trek back for it whenever you're ready, and take it to the extraction zone." He brought up his omnitool and beamed her the coordinates.

Shepard consulted them for a moment before nodding. "Good job. Come on, let's get these people out."

"Right. Slaves and Sand," Alenko shook his head, glad he had not gotten into that nasty loop.

"You said it." Shepard walked over to the first container. She had guessed right when she speculated the slaves would be left in their holding containers for awhile, between being offloaded and uploaded. As long as the Red Sand was a focal point for the mercs, the slaves were safe.

After that, though…not so much.

They were crated up like cattle, Williams thought grimly. Their conditions were disgusting, and that was without drug addiction—clearly there were more than a few addicts who had gotten in over their heads. She would not be so cruel as to point out any such viewpoints in a situation like this, but it only strengthened her opinion: it was one thing to get plastered. It was another to get into drugs—_especially_ Red Sand, which had a known and documented correlation with entrance into slavery.

Garrus moved along the row of containers, towards Tali on the other end, disabling locks so as to let people out. Williams and Alenko followed, coaxing the would-be slaves out of their confinement.

Wrex, having departed on his own to rifle through the belongings of the dead, merc-like, handed Shepard a datapad, practically shoving it under her nose. "Manifests. You can't say I don't help."

"You do help, Wrex—you make faces and the bad guys crap all over themselves…" Shepard answered blandly, already scanning through the contents of the manifest. All slave containers accounted for—Alenko and Williams already had them sitting in a large group, answering questions. "…it's not all Sand…couple cases of Minagen-X3. Never heard of that one…"

"Nasty stuff. Stronger than Sand, but more toxic. Straight out of the Terminus, Shepard. They gotta keep it pressurized, or the dust gets everywhere—you won't want that." Wrex shook his head.

"Ugh," Shepard shook her head. "Does _anything_ good _ever_ come out of the Terminus?" The question was completely rhetorical, since she could answer it.

Shepard turned, spotting another entry on the manifest. "Tali! Check the crates!" Shepard motioned to the slave containers, "False bottoms! Here," Shepard transferred the data from the datapad to her omnitool, before beaming it to the others.

Wrex had vanished again. Shepard skipped to the next item on her list, "Williams, stick with the hostages," better to be a bit euphemistic. And she wanted to have an eye kept on them, just in case. You never knew what might happen, and while Garrus and Tali were close, she did not want everyone with their backs to the slaves. "Garrus…can you see what…" Garrus waved a hand, in understanding.

They needed to prep these people for transport, and Joker's assurance of a few hours' of wait time was not reassuring. The _Normandy_ was simply not set up to transport this many people, which meant cooling their heels until the Alliance could get there.

You never knew when someone, cracked from stress and fear, would relegate this motley crew of humans and aliens into the same category as the slavers and do something stupid. Fear impaired judgment, and she didn't want anyone needlessly getting hurt.

One out of six cases contained Minagen-X3, out of eighteen cases, each at….

Shepard's mental attempts to calculate grams and kilos ceased. There was too much. She did not know enough about calculating drugs per person to know what kind of stash she was looking at, but she did know that for what it cost many people, it was too much.

She did not consider herself part of any war on drugs, not actively. She had enough to do keeping illegal firearms and mods from being aimed at her people, as well as the geth, Saren, and the Reapers.

Save some fight for someone else.

"Can I help with this?" Alenko asked, as Shepard heaved a case of Minagen-X3 free from its Red Sand companions.

"Sure, we're looking for these," Shepard hefted the case. "Minagen-X3…"

"Unstable, a biotic ability enhancer, commonly confused with Red Sand due to the manifestation of biotic abilities in non-biotic subjects. Toxic in large amounts." Alenko finished, a little surprised he remembered the passage so clearly. This would not be his first run-in with the stuff, but apparently it was Shepard's.

"Right." Did he have a photographic memory, or had he just done like she had and memorized the necessary handbooks? She meant it as a compliment, but she did have to wonder.

"It's in the 'what not to eat' section of the _Alliance Handbook for Biotics_," Alenko answered with grim humor.

"Sounds like great nightstand reading. You seen this stuff before?"

"Twice." The details were not important, if she wanted to know she would ask later.

Shepard lugged her case of Minagen-X3 to a comparatively empty corner of the bunker.

"Alenko! Move!" The shout came from Wrex.

Alenko's biotic barrier flared so fast that it seemed as though someone had doused him in accelerant and lit a match. He did not have time to do anything else.

The first shot sent him reeling back into the stacked cases, the barrier flickering with the impact of the bullet. The second shot went astray, puncturing one of the Minagen-X3 containers, which exploded violently.

Within minutes all he could see was red.


	177. Summer Haze

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Alenko opened his watering, irritated eyes slowly, to find Shepard peering down at him. The world behind her seemed indistinct as it danced and swayed. She, at least, had the good grace to hold still, to refrain from distorting. She had…stuff…on her face, but it did not detract from her looks. In fact, the reddish cast of whatever-it-was made her eyes stand out brighter than usual.

He did not try to squash the sentiment, despite the risk of saying something embarrassing. Who cared? Nor could he care about the details pertinent to his situation: such as, why he did not care. He _should_…

…which made him stop again, trying to untangle the thought.

"Alenko, can you hear me?"

"He's out of it, Commander," Tali's voice murmured, somewhere off to one side.

"Is he okay?" Garrus demanded from out of sight.

-J-

"The merc didn't shoot him, but he's _blasted!"_ Williams called back. He _was_, if his change of expression meant anything. His was the face of someone who did not have anything to worry over or feel responsible for—very unlike Alenko. He was lucky _she_ wasn't the first thing he saw and fixated on when he woke up.

_She'd_ have put her rifle butt in his face; it was kinder that way.

"Don't worry then—it'll wear off." Wrex lumbered back downstairs, leaving the last merc to bleed out. Shepard couldn't hear the ragged gasps, and it was better that way.

Trust Alenko to milk things for all they were worth. He, Wrex, could take a bazooka shell to the gut, and Shepard, Williams, and Tali wouldn't ooh and coo over _his_ welfare.

Not that he would want them to.

-J-

Alenko felt fine. So he took a slug, he was a big boy. Wasn't there a saying that women dug guys with battle scars? Except the armor stopped the slug. Or maybe his barrier had done that.

It was nonsense, utter blather and, try as he might, he could not find the mental blather emergency shutdown valve. That valve must be next to his stop-talking-right-now valve: both were on the same board so both were broken.

The nonsense did not stop, or even slow to a trickle.

"I'm okay…" The words were too loud as he rubbed his eyes and his stinging nose. His skin and armor were coated in fine red powder—a powder still hanging cloud-like in the air several meters away.

Shepard had her re-breather in one hand and a fine layer of the dust on her skin and in her hair. The overall effect was a travesty of wearing face powder.

Tali, whom he could now see, was covered in it too, evidence that she had been the first one in, not needing to worry about the pollutants in the air.

"Easy, Lieutenant, turn off the light show," Shepard gave Alenko a shake. As he sat there, with that look on his face, his biotics had suddenly flared, bluish fire hanging in the air around him.

"Huh? Whoa…" No. That, unlike the surprised giggle that came with the words, was normal…and it was so _easy_. It was never that easy…but now it was. Odd…it'd be nice to test it. With Shepard around, the next fight couldn't be far off. Kind of hard to get her attention in the middle of a fight, though, (unless he got hurt, and that was embarrassing), but if he could flatten the opposition before the bullets could really start flying…

…hard to miss something like that. And she _liked_ watching biotics at work. Which meant, in a roundabout way, she liked watching _him_. Things were so easy, suddenly, so black and white.

"He's high as a _kite,"_ Garrus shook his head. Well, that was one way of ensuring all that Sand wouldn't slip through the chinks somewhere. Sand always did, because money was the bottom line for most people. He was sorry Alenko took all that crap full to the face, but…

…well, there was no 'but'.

-J-

"Am _not."_ Alenko got to his feet. The room spun, and within three steps he stumbled, crashing into Shepard, who stepped up quickly to keep him from hitting the ground. "Sorry…"

"That's okay." But her expression was worried.

Everything was _fine_, she didn't _need _to worry!

The world around her seemed to shimmer, like a summer haze. "Hey, Shepard…?"

"Alenko, you're stoned out of your gourd."

"I'm okay. Look…there's _stuff_ all over your face…" It really didn't belong there. He could help with that. Not as much as he would _like_ to, but…

He reached up, brushing a thumb across her cheekbone, smearing the gunk even more.

"I'm going to…go see if I can just find something else to do. Good luck, Shepard." Williams beat a hasty retreat, catching a look on Shepard's face indicating the Commander wanted to shoot her right there for cowardice.

Tali, unseen y Alenko, gave Shepard the thumbs-up, and followed Williams. Form the way Williams seemed to suddenly convulse, Tali must have said something amusing.

Shepard doubted _she_ would find it amusing... "Probably makes me look like a martian." Decision prompted her to step forward, putting herself well within arm's reach. "What do you see?"

-J-

"A very pretty Martian," Alenko responded earnestly. She almost seemed to shine with the kind of haze air sometimes had in summer. "You've got…this beautiful shimmer around you."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"Just the truth." She was so close…he would swear he could feel the warmth associated with that hazy shimmer radiating off her. He wondered how warm she actually was to the touch…all he had to do was lean a little farther forward and...

A sharp sting at his neck made him reach up, finding Shepard's other hand, and a pilfered sedative spray. The world spun worse, as he leaned into the closest support at hand. Shepard helped him to the ground, one hand supporting his head so it would not loll uncomfortably.

Her cheek was warm against his as he leaned against her.


	178. Clouds

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The world was hazy, almost cloudy, when Alenko woke up. It took him a moment to realize he was in the medbay, wearing standard-issue navy blue patient's scrubs. Sitting up, he checked the room, his head aching dully with the remains of a migraine. Empty, except for the light coming from Liara's work station. No, not empty. The recessed sleeper pod for the chief medical officer was occupied.

Ship time…two AM. Well, that accounted for everyone being asleep.

"It's good you're awake, Lieutenant." Liara appeared in the doorway, looking alert as ever. She liked the quiet of the ship.

"Yeah…how long was I out?" He rubbed his eyes. The world still felt strangely hazy, pleasant, punctuated every so often by the feeling that something was not right. Like sunlight peeking out from behind the clouds on a partly cloudy day.

"About eight hours. Do you remember what happened at all?" Liara glanced at Dr. Chakwas in her pod, but opted not to wake the older woman.

Alenko considered. "I remember getting _shot_."

"Yes, they recovered the slug. Shepard seemed to think you'd like to hang onto it." Liara retrieved the slug in a little plastic bag, which she handed over to Alenko.

He had to grin at it. The ground team _did_ like collecting slugs—Williams still had hers, after all. "A slug like that shouldn't have passed my shields. So what am I doing here?"

He glanced at his left arm, rigged for monitoring. They were watching blood chemistry. "The first shot knocked you back. A second shot ruptured a canister of Minagen X3…"

"…and it breached the surrounding canisters of Red Sand…" He finished.

"Yes. You received quite a substantial dosing It's why Dr. Chakwas wants you to stay here, under observation, just to make sure everything's all right."

"I feel fine." Alenko protested.

"You feel fine _now_. It was a _very_ substantial dose. The major effects have worn off, but give it another six to eight hours and you'll feel like crawling out of your skin." Liara watched Alenko's face contort with worry. "It is possible that, if this is a first exposure, the effects will not be too bad," she offered.

"Thanks." He could not even walk into the mess to grab some coffee, or a nutrition bar, then.

"Would you like me to get you something from the mess?" Liara offered hesitantly.

Alenko nodded, partly to get her out of there, so he could have a few minutes to worry in private. To a third-party observer, a dark cloud seemed to manifest above his head. Fear of the unknown crept into the margins of his mind. How much was a 'substantial exposure'? How many more stages of side effects were left?

The information he had about Red Sand and its effects was like what most people got about prescription painkillers: it was easy to get addicted, one needed to be vigilant…but no one ever mentioned what kind of doses or what sort of long-term exposure was needed before a person should start worrying.

How fast did Sand start ruining your life? And this would put some kind of flag on his personnel folder, too, even if it occurred in the line of duty. The door opened, with Liara saying something to someone he could not see.

She glanced at him, in the fashion of a person about to disregard 'friendly advice'. However, she stopped, her brows knitting together, before she smiled. "Here you go." She held the tray, uncertain of whether to put it on his lap or not. When he took it, she let him. "I'll be in my office if you need me—you really should try to get some rest, if you can."

Alenko glanced at the closed door. Someone must have advised her it would be better, in this instance, not to try and help. He swirled the coffee, took a long sip, and gazed into it, watching the cloudy oils swirl across the surface. He tried forcing his mind back, but could not bridge the gap between Wrex's shout and waking up here. Uncomfortable curiosity arose. The first stages of altered behavior were euphoria, lowered inhibitions; it got progressively worse after that.

Lowered inhibitions…he could only pray he hadn't done anything career-killing or embarrassing. He did not care if it was all written off as 'Alenko being high' (he hated the sound of the words); he was almost to the point where he did _not_ embarrass himself by putting his foot in his mouth.

Getting comfortable around Shepard had helped with that.

He did not want to think about Shepard right now. She was his CO, and part of the problematic equation before him. She was not the type to blacklist him for anything. She understood bad things happened. She had probably signed off willingly on Dr. Chakwas' precautionary measures.

She might even 'encourage' the others not to discuss any erratic behavior, and would refuse to do so herself. That was okay, Joker usually listened in on the radios…

…Joker. Alenko groaned, flopping back, but careful not to spill his coffee.

"Are you all right?" Liara reappeared in the doorway.

"Just thinking."

She did not press further, but returned to her work.

Joker was going to rake him over the coals, laughing his head off the whole time. Joker loved non-lethal misfortune befalling others. Alenko wondered if that was a touch of jealousy that the pilot's condition kept him from doing 'the marine thing'. Joker would never say it, but sometimes Alenko wondered...

He sat back up, forcing himself to eat, eventually glancing at his blood chemistry readings when he began to worry again. The readings meant nothing to him, so he put them back on the hook at the foot of the bed.

He eventually finished his meal, nimbly shifting the tray onto a nearby table.

Liara's work light went out not long after, and she presumably went to bed, leaving him well and truly by himself to think.


	179. Undefeated

Sorry for the long silence—been having some health problems. Nothing serious, so maybe I can get back on track with these updates. -_-;

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Looks like Dr. Chakwas finally had enough and let you out!" Shepard greeted Alenko as he stepped free of the medbay with a clean bill of health. She wore her under armor, meaning she was ready to suit up. She crossed the mess hall, poured herself a glass of water, and nonverbally inquired if he wanted one. "How's it feel to be a free man again?"

"Good." He still felt a little uncomfortable in his own skin, but confinement to medbay after that kind of Red Sand exposure would grate on anyone's nerves.

He was a stable L2, but there was always a risk of complications.

He suspected his nasty headaches (a swarm of them, with the full array of ill effects ranging from photophobia to the need for a five-gallon bucket beside his cot) had more to do with worrying than effects of the drugs. Symptoms would have cleared faster if he was allowed to do his job. It was one thing to react to stress when he could _do_ something constructive. It was another to have to sit and stew and worry.

"I would hope so." Shepard was glad to see him up and about. It had been hard to drop in and see if he was okay, when he was either puking up his socks or hiding from all light and noise. She did not like seeing him suffer, which accounted for her avoidance of the medbay.

While he was apparently conscious, he corrected himself. He heard her slip in while he was pretending to be dead (or en route to being dead, he thought grimly), and have a low, mumbled conversation with Dr. Chakwas.

"Remind me not to do that ever again." Alenko moved to rummage for something to eat. It was lunchtime anyway…or just before.

"What, get shot or get dosed?" Williams asked, appearing, also in under armor.

"Both." He knew the instant he said it he had just left himself wide open. However, he knew Shepard and Williams, the teasing was their way of making sure he was all right. He did, however, cast a wistful look at the mission-bound marines. It sucked being confined to the ship.

"Don't get shot." Shepard waved her water glass at him.

"Don't get _dosed—_you'll do something you'll _really_ regret." Williams could not help rubbing it in. It was hilarious watching Alenko, stoned out of his mind, making goo-goo eyes at Shepard. She admired approved Shepard's delicate swiping of one of Alenko's sedative sprays from his medical satchel, and how she mercifully putting him out of action.

"None of that," Shepard warned, abruptly serious. He would find out about that on his own, whether he wanted to or not.

"Aye-aye Skipper."

The look Williams gave Alenko made his insides squirm. It was an evil grin, which on Williams was a thing of terror. What was that about…? Did he want to know?

Ignorance was bliss. He glanced at Shepard, who was collectedly sipping her water. No help there.

"The hostages?" Alenko wished someone had sent him a copy of the reports. He had half-expected at least one for nightstand reading, but no. It would have helped, in the lapses between headaches, maybe even prolonged the respite by giving him something on which he could work.

"Saved, shipped out several hours later. The drugs were recovered." Shepard did not mention that she had been under Chakwas' scrutiny for several hours, coated in the stuff as she was.

"Good," Alenko bit into the nutrition bar, shaking his head. The bar vanished in record time, even for Alenko, who fetched another one.

Williams peered at Alenko and his third nutrition bar: the way he ate it, oen would have thought it was the best stuff on Earth. He looked edgy. Did he look edgy to anyone else? That was one thing she liked about the El-Tee. Give him an excuse and he was the second one to armor up, second one to armor down.

The first and last being Shepard.

Shepard caught it too. Anyone else and she would have let it go, given him more time to pull together, a couple hours to get used to newfound freedom. Not Alenko. He was a marine, he'd been penned up for days in a lot of pain with little to do. Some fresh air would do him good, and give him something to wrap that agile mind around.

It made her sound like a political animal, but she really wanted Alenko on this one, partly because he was an L2. Shepard nodded to Williams to get moving, which Williams did. It was not a mission Shepard would throw Alenko into without a bit of preface. "There's a seat open in the Mako if you want it. Touchy mission, though."

Alenko's heart jumped, hopefully. "Touchy how?"

"You get any spam about an L2 commune on Presrop?"

"Probably just junked it." He wished he had paid attention, now that it had come up.

"Admiral Hackett forwarded a copy. Apparently a couple Alliance investigators were dispatched. No one's heard from them since."

"Gotcha." He could see both her reasons for wanting him along, showing that she had L2 interests of her own to consider—which meant she would consider theirs carefully—and that the Alliance was not the bad guy in all this.

They'd been through a similar song and dance before…only with smaller numbers.

"I'm good, Commander. Whenever you need me." For once, he felt no need to retract the statement, whatever implications could be read into it. Sometimes it really did take a biotic, and he was the best biotic field operative she had.

"Then pick up the pace. You're holding up the bus." She accented her sudden mock-severity with made a show of checking a non-existent wristwatch. "This isn't a civilian freighter, if you're out of medbay, you're back in the shit."

Shepard liked the challenge in Alenko's answering grin as he got to his feet and grabbed another nutrition bar.


	180. Last Hope

Beta-read by Sabelin.

-J-

Presrop was a little moon with little to recommend it. The atmosphere was thin, not conducive to long stints outside without full suits and breathing apparatuses. The sandy soil meant the Mako slipped and slid chaotically when dodging rocks. Apparently the sandy surface only went down a few feet before it turned to solid, iron-rich bedrock.

The only thing that seemed to attract people was the fact that it was out of the way, a 'safe' place to be.

Alenko did not know the officer running the place—Major Kyle—though Shepard indicated she had some second-hand knowledge of him. She identified the man as having been on Torfan. She did not need to say anything else for Williams and Alenko to fill in the gaps.

Both of them knew how Shepard felt about the Butcher of Torfan. Alenko had come face-to-face with that officer, even if Williams did not. After all that, it was not surprising the Kyle had dropped out of the Alliance.

"We're just investigating, so it's a shake-them-up sort of mission," Shepard dictated as they parked the Mako outside. "Be ready, though."

"This could turn into a real bloodbath, Commander," Williams shifted nervously.

Alenko did not like it either. He was only one biotic, stable, strong, or otherwise. If everyone in that bunker decided to try and shred the team apart, it would be the best he could do to cover a retreat. It was never good to think in optimistic terms when it came to this sort of mission.

But Shepard was a negotiator, and a biotic was a walking weapon. He did not like it, he did not like hearing it, but it was true. A biotic was never unarmed, and Shepard always negotiated best when everyone had a gun. She would probably expand her definition of 'armed' or this mission.

Shepard climbed out of the vehicle, waving for them to wait. She was back in minutes, with instructions to proceed, coordinates for the real bunker in her omnitool.

"Plan?" Alenko asked to break the tense silence as Shepard drove.

"Nothing solid." Shepard glanced away from the terrain for a moment, regretting it as the Mako scraped over a rock she missed. "I want to feel the place out a bit." It was a delicate situation, and she was surprised she had been diverted for it. There were, after all, people in the Alliance who specialized in negotiations. She had a knack for it, but not the training.

Or maybe she was just the closest person…and the only one with a stable L2 on hand in case things got ugly. She approved the logic but deplored the lack of thought put into it.

No offense to Alenko, but he was only one biotic,even if she did consider him something of a biotic powerhouse.

She had not mentioned, yet, that Maj. Kyle was probably unstable. Torfan would have been enough to make anyone feel a little unstable, and with a field lieutenant like Rogers…

Shepard remembered the Alliance report Robbins had shown her at the time, driving home the point that 'that could have been you'. It was true, she could have ended up a butcher like Rogers. But she had not, and now was no time to mull over what-ifs. Personally, Shepard had to wonder if Rogers was not as stable as people liked to think. Maybe her implants had tripped some psychotic tendency.

Rogers. Thank goodness she wasn't here. She was the one person Shepard felt she could gun down without mercy. In the back.

Williams nervously jiggled her foot. Up in the gunner's chair, she could see the round bunker growing larger, more defined as Shepard kept the Mako barreling forward. She was not a negotiator, and did not like the implication that this was a mission where weapons stayed on the arms rack until the last possible minute. Going into a situation like this, she heartily wished Shepard had snatched up Liara—the kid might not be good with a gun, but for backing Alenko up, she'd be fine.

Williams did not want to be around a bunch of biotic cultists. Could she use that word? She had no clear idea what these people were looking for, or hoping to find in joining up with this Kyle person. She prayed it was nothing too crazy. Communes like this rarely boded well for those outside… or even those inside. Then she prayed Shepard would find a way to diffuse things. Missing Alliance investigators was bad, but it could get a lot worse, both for the biotics and the team.

It did not take a rocket scientist to know that Shepard was the last chance this place had before the Alliance marched in, guns blazing. That was if they did not simply blow the place off the galactic map from orbit. Spare their ground pounders some nasty losses.

In the driver's seat, Shepard too was feeling the weight of being the last ditch effort—or the last hope, depending on whose side one was looking at. Well, if nervousness was a good sign, she was good to go. Thank goodness the compound was getting close. She could see the tiny speck of red indicating a locked door.

Alenko, too, watched the red light grow larger, until Shepard finally pulled the vehicle to a stop, as close to the door as she could get the Mako without impeding his ability to get out. "If this goes bad, we run. Williams, you and I are suppressing fire, Alenko, you do what you do best. Keep us covered." She had almost said 'cover our asses' but with Williams in the vehicle, and Alenko's recent behavior, she opted for something less easy to misconstrue.

"Stick close—I can maintain a barrier longer if I don't have to cover six feet of space." If there were a lot of angry biotics trying to take them down, he wanted to keep the strongest barrier up as long as possible.


	181. Innocence

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"No! You cannot!" Maj. Kyle protested, his dark eyes growing round as a nasty silence fell in the wake of Shepard's calm warning. Warnings, not threats. "My children, they are innocent!" His voice shook with emotion, though which emotion no one but he was sure.

"Major," Shepard refused to use the word 'father'; it creeped her out. "You know the Alliance, you served with us. You know that the brass aren't going to care if these people are innocent or not," Shepard answered quietly. "Someone has to answer for the deaths of the Alliance investigators—someone _here_. And if the Alliance think it's necessary, they will blast this place into space dust and fill in the hole. Now, you know what you've got to do, for the sake of your…children." It sounded so strange to Shepard to refer to these fully-grown men and woman as 'children'.

"But…but I cannot leave my children without guidance!" The idea seemed to stagger him, as indeed it did. In protecting his 'children' he had put them in more danger than ever. It had not ended up being a warning to the Alliance to leave well enough alone. It ended up a poke in the eye…and if they refused to believe in his children's innocence…

The thought made his complexion go gray. Two Alliance investigators they could deal with. An army? A few warships? No, never.

The man was so obviously cracked that Shepard was having trouble maneuvering the conversation. The Major kept coming to conclusions so erratically that it made her nervous. She could not write off the deaths of the Alliance investigators, but the man was obviously unstable. Being a soldier, she had a ray of sympathy for him, but she also had a duty to perform.

She hated it when duty and personal views conflicted. She hated it even more when her personal views conflicted, as they did at this moment. Right now, though, her only duty was to make sure his priorities adhered to what she wanted.

Thankfully, those priorities were not difficult to discern.

"Major, the best I can do is to say there may be genuine advocacy for biotics on the Parliamentary Sub-Committee for Transhuman Studies before long." She felt fairly certain Burnes had done some serious soul-searching between the time he was released and the time he got back to where he belonged. She had not heard from him, nor did she expect to, but she had a gut feeling—and hers were usually fairly good—that biotics had an advocate on the committee now.

What this would mean, if anything, in the long run was beyond her scope. Because it was beyond her scope, she could promise Kyle nothing.

Kyle leaned heavily on his desk, mulling over his very few, very limited options. The marines waited, trying not to let their tension at the situation show. The biotics had, so far, proved mistrustful, watchful, as if waiting for the word to purge these outsiders from their midst.

But until that word came, they carried on with their duties.

Just like playing chicken, Williams thought grimly. You didn't necessarily need a good poker face for playing chicken.

"I…" Kyle struggled to find a way around what this Alliance soldier had to say, but found he could not. The impending doom of the Fleet blasting his children to bloody lumps in a mangled bunker was too much. Too much like Torfan, too much blood, too much loss. It would be fighting the batarians all over again, never mind that he was now the one entrenched and safe…

…but not safe. Not really.

"I want to help you, Major, and your…children…I really do. But you've got to give me something, I can't do it alone." Shepard's prompt was gentle, almost insidiously so.

Kyle sighed heavily, his posture slackening with defeat he had not quite reconciled himself to. Then he spotted the snag in the plan. "You…if my children see you taking me away, they will not understand. They will attack you, and you will be forced to kill them." Which was the last thing he wanted, and he genuinely believed Shepard did not want to have to do it, either.

Williams resisted the urge to go for her rifle. It did not sound like a threat, but she thought she saw where this was going. Was it a genuine thing, or just a bid for time? Time in which to bunker down and hedge their bets.

Alenko, too, tensed. Fortunately, there were no other biotics in the room. Doubtless because Kyle meant to play the card that even if he was killed, the Alliance representatives would not make it out of the compound alive. Cracked, but smart.

"That's right. What are you getting at, Major?" Shepard's words came out more neutrally than she could have hoped.

"Please, give me an hour, let me explain to them. They are innocent, they must not be harmed!"

Shepard weighed her options, giving Kyle a searching look. After a few long moments, Shepard nodded once. "One hour. You'll present yourself, unarmed and alone at the front of the compound. You will be sequestered by us until such a time as the Alliance dispatches a ship to collect you. Your people will remain inside the far bunker where they're safe." She pointed in the direction of the structure the team had first approached.

"I understand, and agree," Kyle nodded, radiating relief that this was closing peacefully.

"Oh, and Major?" Shepard had not yet started moving for the door, but took his silent relief as a moment in which to stick in the necessary warning. When he looked up, she continued levelly, holding his gaze, "If I have to come back out here, because you fail to make an appearance, I'll be forced to carry out my other orders. And _you _will live. Please bear that in mind." It was a threat, a warning, and a plea that he not do anything that necessitated a bloodbath.


	182. Waiting

Betaread by Saberlin.

I _will_ get back into the swing of things!

-J-

The three marines retreated though the compound, all of them feeling the uncomfortable prickle of worry that perhaps Shepard was making a big mistake. Shepard certainly could not help thinking it, as the biotics in the compound watched their progress towards the front door. Major Kyle following in their wake, plain proof nothing untoward had happened.

The back of Williams' neck prickled, reminding her of Shepard's favorite idiom for such occurrences: _it's like, four-eyed uglies…the back of my neck…_ The inmates of this compound certainly kept a close eye on them. Williams could not see any guns, but she knew what Alenko could do, so the lack of visible weaponry was _not_ comforting.

Alenko was aware of the eyes on the back of his neck, but not for the same reason as Williams. He had to wonder how brainwashed some of these people really were, if seeing an L2 as an officer in the Alliance was so puzzling. One or two did not look as though they could quite reconcile the idea that this Alliance invader had brought one with her. Well, the Alliance did want biotics, but it was not an easy road.

What was? Living quietly as a tech, manning an interface would be _boring._ He hated data crunching, and the idea of doing it every day for twenty plus years made his skin break out in gooseflesh. And the private sector…he did not want to go there. In conversation, thought, or otherwise.

No, the Alliance was not bad. It might be better if a certain someone was not dragging the crew into a lethal battle with a Spectre and his geth army backed by the race of sentient machines that killed the Protheans…but no job was perfect, right?

He had to smile, put it like that and it sounded more like a book or a vid than real life.

The last door opened, allowing them to step out onto the sandy ground of Presrop. Shepard turned to look Kyle in the eye, as soon as her soldiers were outside, before cuing her omni-tool. Her meaning could not have been clearer: _your time starts now. _

The trio returned to the Mako, Alenko taking the gunner's chair. Williams grimaced, but said nothing. No one liked driving around in the passenger seat. Shepard kicked the vehicle to life, and pulled back several hundred meters.

"I hate waiting," Williams grumbled quietly, crossing her arms and putting one foot up on the dashboard. There was no one to see them, and when the vehicle was parked for waiting, who cared if feet went on the dashboard? Now, if this was her mom's car back home, her mom would be having a cow. Williams grinned to herself.

Ah the joys of military life, boots all over the passenger-side dashboard!

Shepard, too, slouched as comfortably as she could, though the steering wheel got in the way, leaving her unable to imitate Williams. _Her_ father had not cared about feet on the dashboard. She had been such a daddy's girl. That was as far as the thought went before burning up in the atmosphere of reality.

Beep beeb bee-beep.

Williams' mouth twitched: those were the sounds of geeking coming from the gunner's chair.

Tap-tap-tap-boop_. _And more geeking from the driver's side. She was sure they were not playing solitaire. "You didn't bug the base, did you? Or rig it to explode?" One question for Alenko, one for Shepard.

"No," Alenko shook his head, unseen.

"Hey, has anyone got two-words, nine letters?…'the missing link between birds and dinosaurs'." Shepard, even when she could, refused to consult the extranet for these sorts of things.

"Garrus?" Alenko offered helpfully, without thinking—though he too joined the snickers.

"No, he's got it: _proto avis_," Williams held up a finger, casting her vote. "Proto meaning first, avis meaning bird. The first bird but it wasn't really a bird."

"Pro…to…" Shepard considered the answer. "Five points, Williams."

"How'd you know that?" Alenko frowned, looking up from his number puzzle.

"Loved dinosaurs as a kid. You know…what're you doing El-Tee?"

An arm attached to an omnitool appeared.

"You know, you can squeeze in here with us, we don't bite." Shepard muttered, peering at his omnitool display. He had to be contorted into a _weird_ position for them to see his omnitool.

"Tight fit, Commander."

Shepard and Williams exchanged looks, before both scooted to make room. It was tight, but not painfully so. It only got painful if elbows started flailing as the vehicle rattled (particularly Garrus who had _sharp _elbows), or if one of the bulkier non-humans was up front.

Alenko sighed, but slipped out of the gunner's chair, and into the open space. He kept knocking into Shepard's elbow—he being left handed—but she did not seem bothered.

"Ugh," Williams peered at his omnitool's display. "It's all..._numbers_…"

"You never played _kakuro_?" It was best to give Williams the benefit of the doubt. "It's like…_sudoku_."

"Quit that years ago, got too easy," Shepard mumbled. "This looks nasty, I think I'll stick with my crosswords."

"Like those _are_ easy?" Alenko teased.

"Okay, so I missed a day in school. I was never a big biology fan…"

"Well, you remembered the basics." Alenko had not meant to say it, but at least Williams did not know exactly to what the statement pertained.

_Um, I may not have completed senior biology, but don't you need a _male_ to get eggs?_

Shepard's mouth puckered and she filled in several more words on her puzzle, as Williams tossed out suggestions which did nothing so much as bog down Alenko's attempts to solve it. Well, at least he didn't squirm so much anymore. And it was hilarious, especially to someone who was there. "What can I say—it takes two."

Williams looked from one officer to the other. "This _sounds…interesting…"_

"Two shots to the center of mass, a headshot if you're weapon-proficient." Shepard rattled off easily.

Alenko settled back, poking at his puzzle. He hated waiting around.


	183. Trouble Lurking

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It took three hours for Fifth Fleet to re-route a ship to make the pickup. From what Shepard understood, Adm. Hackett had a genuine interest in seeing Maj. Kyle safely in Alliance custody. Yes, there was the matter of the dead investigators, but from the tone of the conversation, she thought Hackett and Kyle might have served together at some point, or been friends.

She could not say why with any certainty, but it was the impression she had. Kyle had cooperated with her instructions to the letter, and while the wait had been silent, it had been uneventful.

At the moment, however, Shepard wanted to drag Kyle back to the Alliance herself—and it was not his fault. What suddenly provoked the desire to handle the matter, even though she had other, bigger issues to attend, was the presence of her least favorite person in the galaxy.

It was not Saren. She at the very least respected him as a foeman.

It was Rogers. Lt. Commander Eva Rogers, the Butcher of Torfan, evil walking, live and in person. Rogers greeted them cordially as she climbed out of her shuttle to meet Shepard, the ground team, and Kyle as they stood outside one of the emptied secondary buildings of the commune.

"You!" Kyle tried to step back, but Alenko stopped him, though he glowered at Rogers, as Shepard's hackles went up. Even though Rogers was a biotic, Alenko would still have put money on Shepard winning, if the two ever went at it. Then again, call him over-protective, but if a fight broke out, Rogers was not getting close enough to Shepard to do any damage.

Shepard might wring his neck for it later, but better that than seeing her warped into a bloody paperweight. Rogers was considered an adept for a reason. Just as Shepard usually wore her Infiltrator pin when not in armor, Rogers sported a similar one, marked A.

"Major, it's lovely to see you again," Rogers lilted, her expression polite but obscuring a predatory aura. She gave her hair a toss, looking over the people before her, and the bunker behind. "I'm glad you remember me. It's been so long."

"Who can forget the Butcher of Torfan?" Kyle asked quietly, giving Shepard a disgusted look, clearly blaming her for this delegation.

Rogers seemed untroubled by the epithet. "I did what had to be done, Major. To minimize sacrifices of our unit in the long run. It was bloody, and there were many deaths, regrettably, but I did what had to be done." It was something she had repeated over and over, it summed up her career past, present and future: _I did what needed to be done_. Shepard doubted very much that this meant Rogers pledging loyalty to any cause but her own. _All_ things done benefited Rogers in some way. "My conscience is clear, though I am, of course, sorry those horrible events have caused you so much…distress."

"Conscience?" Shepard's murmur was just loud enough to shift Rogers' focus away from Kyle. There was trouble up a head, and she had minutes to figure if it was even safe to turn Kyle over to Rogers. Was Hackett's interest enough? Was Kyle enough of a non-important issue to Rogers? Would Rogers' interests be furthered by getting him to Fifth alive?

Rogers did not comment, knowing the implication was that she did not _have_ a conscience, but continued on. She loved rattling Shepard's chain. She would love, even more, to find a way to replace Shepard as a Spectre, but one thing at a time. Suicidal, idealistic do-gooders like Shepard tended to have early expiration dates. "Commander Shepard…_lef-_tenant…ah, mixing the ranks I see."

Williams' eyes narrowed. Who was _this_ cow?

"_Spectre's_ prerogative," Shepard retorted sweetly, "we take only the very best of the very best, regardless of rank." Was Hackett just not paying attention when he rerouted the SSV _Lille _and her escort freighter _Omaha_? Of course, Shepard had not known Rogers was aboard the _Omaha_, but she did now.

Oversight, maybe?

Unfair, certainly. Shepard would not trust Rogers with a potato peeler, let alone a psychologically damaged former CO. It was safe to say the feeling was mutual. Shepard, in Rogers' books, would find a way to use the potato peeler as a weapon and stab her in the throat with it.

Which put them on even footing, really.

"Mmm," Rogers shrugged noncommittally. She gave the lieutenant another once-over, feeling a passive mass effect field around him, that made it was clear that he was ready for trouble. It made her teeth vibrate. _He _would be fun to have around. "My commanding officer has delegated my team and I to take Major Kyle into custody, pending trial and sentencing on Arcturus station."

Her team consisted of four soldiers, none of them N-operatives, all officers. Two of them (twins, a man and a woman) were old enough to be L2s, though none of them were familiar to Alenko. The other two officers were not biotics at all. One of them looked crazy, and carried enough firepower to clear a freighter by himself.

"Adm. Hackett has expressed a great interest in the recovery of Maj. Kyle," Shepard declared levelly. "Personal interest."

"You don't really think I would violate my orders, do you?" Rogers posed the question lightly.

"You do what has to be done. Not necessarily what should be." Shepard crossed her arms, hating Rogers even more than usual.

Rogers laughed, a rich sound that bubbled up from her diaphragm, and ended in a sigh. "You've done what was necessary many times—and there are those who argue there are things _you _should have done. I do love these chats, Shepard, but I'm under orders…and don't you have something more…mmm…pressing to do?"

"What I am or am not tasked to do is none of your concern, Commander. It's above your pay grade." Roger's smile did not falter, but something in her eyes hardened.


	184. Muffin

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Alenko found Joker in the mess when he wandered in. Survey missions did not usually take eight hours, but this one got off to a slow start, and ran longer than anyone anticipated. Surveys were _routinely _boring. Not when Wrex got to drive, however. The krogan was crazy to begin with and it got worse behind the wheel. Even Shepard's nerves were, as she put it, "shot" after that trip.

Alenko silently agreed, rather than state aloud that if she ever let the krogan drive again it would be too soon for him. However, it _would_ be worse if the krogan got stir crazy.

Joker watched Alenko lumber in, the biotic's whole posture sagging. Must have been a _long_ day—or the krogan's driving was worse than Shepard's. Everyone knew Shepard landed the Mako with textbook precision, but everyone _also_ knew she was a speed demon, and had a unique idea of 'safe clearance' around any solid object.

Joker surreptitiously brushed the crumbs of his snack from his upper lip as Alenko knelt, rummaging around in the cabinet beneath the coffee maker. He had hoped to be out of here before his fellow lieutenant got back, safe and comfortable in his sleeper pod when the joke sprung.

Oh well, Alenko was a boy scout—it was why the girls liked him. Luckily for Joker, boy scouts didn't hit geeky boys with glasses. Or leg braces. Normally, Joker would bristle over this…but he also understood self-preservation, and he did not need his legs to be a pilot—as Shepard had once noted.

Alenko's hand found the box he was looking for, a blue and white box marked _Kaidan_ in black permanent marker. But there was something wrong with it. Something painfully, horribly wrong with it…

He pulled the box out and shook it, but no cream-filled golden sponge cake appeared.

There was no replacement box with a nice note 'hey, El-Tee/Alenko/Kaidan, finished off your snacks so here's a fresh box and no hard feelings'. It sometimes happened, not often, but sometimes.

Alenko considered himself a reasonable man, but dammit, that was the last one in the box…and the cake-thief had _left the box in there_.

_Empty_.

He got to his feet, looking at the box with a mix of fury and disappointment. He was a biotic, it was nice to have something tasty after a day like today, particularly with a double-helping of shipboard rations to look forward to.

Shepard entered the mess, looking like Alenko felt. She stopped, looking from Joker to Alenko, to the box. "What's the matter? Someone forget the cream filling?"

Alenko, suddenly embarrassed over getting so worked up over being denied a snack cake tipped the box and shook it. "Wasn't me."

Shepard's expression became shocked, taking in the meaning behind the words. "Ugh, that's just not right…" she eyed the empty box before wandering over to that same cabinet. "Cupcake?" Shepard asked, emerging from the recesses of the cabinet with a box labeled _Shepard_ on all sides in bold strokes. No one was dumb enough to touch Shepard's things, especially when so plainly identified.

Alenko looked blankly at the chocolate dollop of deliciousness in Shepard's shapely hand, a little embarrassed, a little surprised…but pleased. It would not have been so bad if Joker had not heard the offer, looked at the two of them, then burst out laughing.

Shepard placed the cake firmly in Alenko's hand. She was not going to kill Joker, but she _was_ going to make him suffer. She could not prove it, but she had her suspicions about this pilot. "Lt. Moreau."

The laugh died on Joker's face, as he got up as quickly (and safely) as he could. He was about to pay for his joke…and it was too late to let anyone know about the punch line. "You look a little peaky, Moreau. Take tomorrow off. I don't want a sick pilot ricocheting us off a star."

That was cold. Cold and cruel, Joker thought, watching Shepard take out a cupcake for herself, put the box back, and stride off.

Shepard put it on her list of things to do to have Dr. Chakwas ask whey Joker wasn't piloting the ship, then tell him she, Shepard, never submitted the temporary suspension request. See if Joker laughed at _that_.

Joker eased back into the chair. It was unfair. It was a joke between buddies! It really was—and Alenko would realize it before the day was out. The question was, would he be friend enough to talk with the Commander about that 'looking peaky' thing…?

Alenko looked at the cupcake, then to Joker, examining his friend's face closely. "You had something to do with this," Alenko shook the empty box at Joker.

"If I did, do you think I'd have kept quiet while she _benched _me?"

"Well, you'd need a minute to get over being appalled that she would do something like that…" He was fairly sure this _was_, in fact, a Joker-style prank.

Alenko wanted to point out that Joker's joke was ill-conceived, because one never, _ever _messed with another soldier's snacks, even if he was starving, because no one starved on a functional frigate. He did not mind sharing, but he liked to have the option.

"I thought we were buddies," Joker waved expressively, "I would never, _ever_ eat the last cake in the box and just leave it at that." Seeing as Alenko was not convinced, "Muffin?" He held up the package of banana nut lying by his wrist.

"I've got a cupcake, I don't need your muffin." Alenko heaved a sigh, before hiking off to his personal effects locker.

…there _was_ the cupcake. Maybe things weren't so bad…

He opened the door of his effects locker…and found a new box of snack cakes where he couldn't miss them, with a little message on it: _nice and fresh_.

He nearly crushed the cupcake. If Joker hoped that replacing the box would convince Alenko to get him un-benched…

-J-

I should point out that the personal effects lockers aren't designed to hold boxes of snacks, and they'd likely get crushed. Hence the need to keep them elsewhere.


	185. Touch

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sat in the mess, just a few minutes shy of midnight. Hunched over the table, with her head on her arms, one might have thought she had simply fallen asleep there while thinking. Or rather, anyone outside the crew of the _Normandy_ might have thought so.

She could have thought and thought hard in the privacy of her own room, but the noise of the Cipher in her head made her glad when other people were around. Sitting in a silent room only seemed to make the noise louder. Sitting in the mess also put her closer to the coffee.

This was how Alenko found Shepard when he woke up for his midnight walk around the mess hall. He could tell she was awake simply because her breathing was not comprised of the measured, even breaths of sleep, but were shallower and quicker.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?" Shepard raised her head, her brow crinkled from the pain behind her eyes. The pills Dr. Chakwas had given her had not so much as dented this headache, nor had two hours in her pitch-black quarters.

He wanted to tell her she looked like crap, but between the fact she was a woman and his superior officer, it was easy to squelch the words. Neither would take well to such a sentiment.

Shepard, however, saw it on his face as clearly as if he had said it. "I suppose I _do_ look like crap." She got up, and fetched herself another mug of coffee. Alenko noted, with satisfaction, she was still using the _Relay Rob's _mug. She always would, he supposed, but the glimmer of pride remained.

Shepard did not see this, but downed the coffee Wrex-fashion, that is, without tasting it, for the sake of the caffeine.

Alenko knew what this was about—pounding caffeine was what he called 'self-medicating' a migraine. Besides, OTC migraine pills were high in caffeine—coffee could only help. "That bad?"

Shepard leaned on the counter. "Really bad. It's just..." She struggled for a moment to find the words she wanted. "The Cipher's just...it's just a bit loud." She waved her hand again, a combination of frustration and disregard for the previos statement.

"They'd give anyone a headache." He could only imagine.

Shepard smiled at the counter. She could trust Alenko to say that only if it was true. He would not say it just to sympathize—and she was not in a mood for sympathy.

"Did you see Dr. Chakwas about something for it?"

There was the sympathy. "Yeah, about..." she looked at her watch, "two and a half hours ago."

"Yikes." With all the crap going on these days—the stuff he knew about and the stuff he didn't—it would not surprised him if Shepard developed migraines. He hoped she didn't, though. She had enough on her plate without that kind of pain. Then again, she was the type to work through it, pain or no pain. "Anything I can do?"

Shepard smiled—he was too sweet for his own good. "Unless you're good at chasing off headaches, I don't think so. Thanks, though."

Alenko glanced around. The mess, the entire deck was empty, with most of the crew asleep."There is, actually." He would not have said anything if anyone else was around.

"Really?" Shepard straightened up, turning to face him. "What?" Well, as a migraine sufferer, he probably knew a thing or two about getting rid of headaches.

"Turn around."

If it were anyone Shepard wouldn't take into a firefight, she might have argued or told him to take a hike. Seeing as it was Alenko, she obeyed, glancing back over her shoulder and resting her hands on the counter, more for something to do with them than anything else.

Alenko's hands settled against the sides of her head, his thumbs resting one on either side of the bones in her neck. He tilted her head this way and that, Shepard realized, so she would get used to not trying to keep her neck straight if he tried to tilt her head.

All this came from experience with the discomfort migraines sometimes caused by dragging the muscles around the base of the skull tight. As expected, he could feel the tension in the muscles of Shepard's neck. "Now, I'm no expert at this…" he declared quietly, working at the knotted muscles with his thumbs. "But when I was little, Mom would do this."

"You're fine…" Shepard closed her eyes. Within a few moments Alenko managed to work out the worst of the tension, which in turn soothed Shepard's headache. Or maybe it was just the feel of Alenko's warm hands, and the steady pressure. She knew there was more behind the offer to manually ease the headache than just friendship. She had never seen him do this for anyone else. The fact that both his thumbs rested over the same spot his headjack rested was not lost on her.

She was surprised at how pleasant it was to let him fiddle with her neck and head. Or maybe it was just the warmth of touch on tight muscles. Or maybe, and her stomach cringed a little, it was just the warmth of touch. Another human's touch, one without threat of injury.

After a moment in which Alenko knew he ought to step back and let her go he glanced around. "I think that's as good as it's going to get."

Shepard reached up, putting her hands over his. "Thanks Alenko."

"You're welcome, Shepard." With that, Alenko drew his hands away, enjoying the moment during which her hands slid against his as he freed them. "Good night."

"You lucked out with moms, Alenko," Shepard smirked.

She headed back to her room, the feel of Alenko's touch on her head and neck still strong, warm and comforting. And as if the attention was not enough, her headache really had eased enough to let her get to sleep once she flung herself face down on her bed.


	186. Knives and Garrotes

Beta-read by Saberlin. To all of you who celebrate Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving!

-J-

Williams took a steadying breath, more comfortable with a quarian watching her back than she had ever expected to be. This was a delicate mission, and while the last time Shepard took Williams and Tali out on a mission (wherein they triggered a seismic event and destroyed a major Prothean ruin), Shepard insisted that there was no one better for a delicate job like this one.

Tali had, Williams thought, felt the same way. It was something in the way they looked at one another before looking back at Shepard, as though inquiring 'delicate? Us?', quarian physiology notwithstanding.

But here they were: close quarters, with terrorists and drugged-up scientists wandering around. It reminded Williams too much of those dumb arcade games she used to love playing with her sisters.

She crouched quietly behind a stack of crates. The orders were clear: don't' kill the scientists, or get them killed. This meant getting up close and personal with the enemy, keeping them _quiet_ as they died. Her stomach squirmed as she pulled out her garrote. An antiquated weapon, to be sure, but there was nothing like a just-in-case fallback. In this case it was almost a necessity.

If they pulled this off, she would never hear another joke about the primitive article ever again.

It was probably for this reason—having a garrote and presumably knowing how to use it—that Shepard had picked her for this mission. Otherwise Williams would have wondered what she was doing here. Still, if Shepard wanted sneaky feet, she ought to have taken Garrus. Him and his sniper rifle…of course, that was a loud weapon in and of itself…but that could be adjusted, even if the terrain wasn't really good for,how did he put it? 'Displays of marksmanship—not _sniping_'.

Ah, well, he was just being ornery. She never thought she would be taken on a mission because she had a nasty little fallback weapon. Not everyone could use a garrote to any effect, but she was a marine, tough as nails, and this was a rescue. At least, she hoped it would be a rescue and not cleanup.

The soft thud-thud of footsteps. Williams grasped the grips on the thin, tough wire. Vicious but silent. You couldn't scream with this thing around your throat.

The soldier lookalike never saw Williams, or what caught him around the through before dragging him to the ground. But without a hand to stop the wire from biting in, he could not scream as Williams pulled him back out of sight, her expression pinched. It was not a nice way to die.

Tali watched Shepard slither off, moving stealthily. Wherever Williams was, there was no sound of gunfire, which meant either the Chief had encountered no trouble, yet, or had found a quiet way to deal with it.

Tali did not mind the sneaking around, in fact it was a nice change from the usual, even if the mission was still dangerous. These operatives were, from what she could tell, insane. She did not approve of the practice of sapient shields: who did? She was not even sure what their goals were, but it couldn't be anything good.

Feet thudded on the ground, but no indication of anyone having spotted Shepard or Williams. Tali silently drew her tactical knife. Silent. She was not a sneaky person by nature, but her experiences since leaving the Flotilla had provided insight into adapting to any situation.

And she had looked into knife-fighting techniques since joining Shepard's crew. It was no longer just for cutting wires, hoses, or prying things loose. This would be her first real experience with sapients and knives occupying the same space…

In a twist of irony, it was Williams who had given her a few lessons in how marines handled a field knife in these sorts of situations. Tali had raised the issue one evening after dinner, more to Shepard and Alenko than anyone else. It was Williams who awkwardly tracked her down later and offered a couple practical lessons. Taking down a human, going for soft spots, was not like slitting the wires on a geth, if you could get that close.

_Messy, but it'll get the job done._

Tali hoped Williams was right, because it looked like she was about to find out. An operative walked past her, spotting her out of the corner of his eye as he passed. Tali jumped up, clamped a hand over his mouth and drove the knife in, right where a biotic's headjack would be. A soft _pfft_ of air, and the man went slack, crumbling into a heap.

She would have to thank Williams for useful tactics…if incredibly messy ones. And this one _was_ messy…all that blood…it made her queasy.

Shepard crouched behind the terminal, working as quickly as she could without sacrificing accuracy. No sound as of yet, though she thought she heard something, maybe two somethings, heavy hit the ground. But the sounds were so easily lost in the large room full of wandering lunatics and crated gear, that she could not be sure.

She smiled thinly as she continued to work, struggling with firewalls, locks, and blocks. Knives and garrotes. Anyone who said neither had a place in this marine's corps would have to pay attention to the silent tactics employed in this bunker. It was the reason she picked Tali and Williams—quite apart from the fact Williams could probably snap a man's neck just as effectively, if not so quietly.

Not everyone had neck-snap capabilities that did not let the victim shout out.

Shepard's omnitool blinked, as it was set to silent, to catch her attention. There, she was finally in: the bunker's defense systems were all hers.

There were no signs of detection by the enemy yet, for which she was deeply grateful, as she deftly spliced old feed with new, effectively blotting Tali, Williams and herself out of sight from anyone watching the video surveillance. The control room wouldn't 'see' a problem until it was too late...

-J-

For everyone who loved Tali's combat knife, and the early mention of Williams' garrotte. ^_^ The term 'sapient shields', in case there's any confusion should be 'human shields', but since we've got aliens in the mix...


	187. The Look

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Joker glanced around before heaving a heavy sigh, rubbing his beard. It was amazing what kind of weirdness happened on this ship. If he had not seen the colonists on Feros freak out and start doing 'the zombie walk' he would never have believed it. If he had not seen—and smelled—Shepard and her ground team when they got back last time, he would have never believed the story of finding crazy space roaches on Noveria.

He _could_ believe a big company hiding something like that though—_that_ made sense.

"Your butt's gonna take root in that chair, Joker."

Joker sighed: Shepard hadn't actually benched him, but the 'joke' made him feel...clingy towards his ship.

Yes, _his _ship.

Awkwardly, he freed his crutches. The progress was slow, and the stairs as tricky as ever.

It did not surprise him to find Shepard and Alenko both up, with squares of paper stacked between them—and an ever mounting pile of crumpled up half-finished figures. Well, Shepard was always threatening to get a calm-inducing hobby.

Alenko shifted in his seat. "Hey."

Joker freed one hand to wave, awkwardly fetched dinner, and blessed the Commander and Alenko for ignoring totally the difficulties that ensued. He settled in one of the mess' more comfortable chairs, before looking at the projects they were working on. It _looked _like origami, based on the book by Shepard's elbow.

It also looked like she was no good at it. Wow. Something the great awesome hero kickass icon _wasn't_ good at? A wicked smile spread across Joker's features—tempered by a momentary check to see if Shepard was in the mood to suspend her pilot for real if he ruffled her feathers too much.

"New hobby?" He asked blandly, directing the question at Alenko. Shepard was scowling at the paper as though, considering ripping it to pieces and throwing it into the air like confetti.

But who had confetti at a funeral? Even if it was just a funeral for a failed hobby?

"Let's call it an experiment," Alenko shrugged. He shifted his samurai helmet, surprised he even remembered how to do it. Then again, what else did you do in a place where there was no extranet? This ended up being the answer—though using the proper paper as opposed to pilfered printout paper would probably help.

Shepard heaved a sigh, crunched the half-finished project in one hand, and tossed it onto the pile of ruined paper.

"Feel better?" Joker asked as Shepard slouched in her seat.

Shepard flicked her vivid eyes at him. What had she done—or to what had she been exposed—that they should look…well, like _that_? The color and the brilliance were...creepy.

"I'll feel better once I've got Saren in a black bag down in the hold."

"No pine pox?" Joker asked innocently.

Alenko would have liked to kick Joker under the table—he was unwittingly pushing Shepard further than he knew, and it was not wise. The only way to really get Shepard out of her funk was to let time pass. Had they been in any colonized place, he'd have found a way to convince her to go burn off some steam at the local racquetball court. And of course, such a trip really did need two people to be any fun.

Shepard tried for the third time to fold the silly figure. "No pine box."

"He should worry." Joker got up and returned with coffee. "Next time, we'll just take the Normandy in, and blow him up with the heavy cannon. Or drop the Mako on him."

"Won't work." Shepard shook her head. She _knew_ Joker was just living up to his name, but the topic grated on her. She needed to recover her sense of humor to deal with Joker—on any other day she would have laughed and agreed with him, that dropping the Mako on Saren's head was an excellent plan. '_Splat goes the turian'_.

But not today. Geth, zombies, volcanoes, rescue missions, and galactic politicking and they were no closer to _finding_ Saren, let along doing anything to him, than they were when they started. All their efforts merely disrupted his plans—but without sign of him …or Sovereign. And puzzling over Sovereign made her head hurt, and the noise from the Cipher grow too loud for comfort.

Sure it will," Joker waved, though he noticed the little crease between Shepard's brows. He cut the next cocky comment to what he intended to be a vote of confidence. "He's good, but he's not _that_ good."

It was not the vote of confidence, it was the fact Shepard was human, frustrated, and Joker was unconsciously getting on her nerves. However he did it, it broke her bad mood—maybe it was watching the pilot unwittingly tap dance up to the edge of a cliff. Well, if he could make light of a serious situation, she should at least come up with a decent comeback. She waited until he put his coffee down, shoving her over-creased, deformed origami figure aside.

She knew her last 'joke' had been a bit rough, and while she felt bad…she didn't feel bad enough to not want to watch him squirm a bit. Only a little, though, for on the whole she liked Joker: he kept things interesting.

Shepard said nothing, but her expression changed to something which, if they were all standing, would have made both Joker and Alenko back up nervously. Where the nervousness came in, neither could say—it was not a threatening look—but there _was_ something unnerving about it.

It was that look. _The_ look. The one which gave Joker his first impression about Shepard in person as opposed to Shepard in Alliance propaganda. The one reminding him of that big, three-hundred pound tiger at the zoo, sprawling in the sunshine, looking directly at _him_.

The tiger's expression at the time said it all: _Kid, if it wasn't for these bars, I'd eat you in three bites._


	188. Paperwork

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

To: Adm. S. Hackett, Fifth Fleet Systems Alliance, Arcturus Station ([CENSORED])

CC: Capt. D. Anderson, Systems Alliance Marines, the Citadel ([CENSORED])

From: Lt. Commander J. Shepard, Fifth Fleet Marine Corps: Special Operations, SSV Normandy ([CENSORED])

Subject: After Action Report

Cluster: Artemis Tau

System: Macedon

World: Sharjila

Mission Objective: Mercenary camp requiring immediate attention

Mission Result: Mission complete: mercenary base disabled, personnel dispatched

Mission Personnel: Mission Specialist W. Urdnot and Gunnery Chief A. Williams

Start time: 1221 Citadel Standard Time; ~1700 Local Time

End time: 1608 Citadel Standard Time; ~2100 Local Time

Upon Mako-drop on the surface of Sharjila, the unit immediately proceeded to the engagement area, before disembarking and continuing on foot, taking advantage of the terrain to perform reconnaissance before planning any kind of strike.

The prefab bunker was strategically places so as to minimize invasion, and was well-guarded by mercenary personnel with no markings to identify affiliation. Reference with shipside Mission Specialist G. Vakarian yielded no results: the mercenary band was comprised of freelancers. No coordinated reciprocity directed at the Alliance is likely as a result of this operation.

After waiting until well after nightfall, the strike team brought the Mako up to the bunker, and proceeded to use heavy weapons against the sentries posted. The Mako took superficial damage from heavy rifle fire, but was not damaged in any way that would compromise the mission. The vehicle's integrity is already being addressed by the on-board garage crew (damage report is under way, and will be forwarded upon completion).

Upon clearing the sentries, the ground team disembarked from the Mako and performed a quick search of the area, to ensure no survivors could lurk within the sentry towers, or remnants thereof. Once we ascertained that no reciprocity could come from behind us, we proceeded to enter the bunker, with MS Urdnot taking point.

After shorting out the power supply—which unlocked the secondary blast doors—I proceeded to cut lights, disabled security systems, and enabled the fire safety protocols. Under the cover of chaos, the strike team gained entry to the main floor of the bunker. Inspectors may wish to perform a sweep of the bunker: there were a great number of heavy packing crates that may or may not contain illegal substances or artifacts. We did find signs of holding pens—presumably for slaves—but there were no sapients present when we arrived.

While Chief Williams provided covering fire, MS Urdnot and I pushed forward, spreading out to give shotgun fire maximum effectiveness. Faced against superior numbers, the unit held its ground and inched forward. The leader of the mercenary band was killed about halfway through the engagement, as evidenced by her uniquely decorated armor, and her position in the swathe of damages.

The leader of the group, an asari slaver, was Dahlia Dantius. D. Dantius had documentation of slave shipments (which has also been appended, for Alliance investigation), as well as evidence of intent to extort from her sister Nassana (next of kin), a diplomat on the Citadel, on the grounds of Ms. Dantius being closely related to such a criminal. Upon next return to the Citadel I will notify Ms. Dantius of her sister's demise in person. At that time D. Dantius' belongings will be given to her next of kin. I will send report on the meeting to append to this document.

-J-

To: Lt. Commander J. Shepard, Fifth Fleet Marine Corps: N7, SSV Normandy ([CENSORED])

From: Gunnery Chief A. Williams, Fifth Fleet Marine Corps: B4, SSV Normandy ([CENSORED])

Subject: After Action Report

Cluster: Artemis Tau

System: Macedon

World: Sharjila

Commanding Officer: Lt. Commander J. Shepard

Mission Objective: Clear out mercenary camp; secure the premises

Mission Result: Mission success: mercenary base was purged

The _SSV Normandy_ dropped us (Commander Shepard, Mission Specialist Wrex, and I) onto the surface of Sharjila, and from the drop zone we closed on the mercenary base, using the Normandy's scanning systems to ascertain the camp's location. We made the initial approach to the bunker on foot (despite the inconveniences a level one pressure hazard), in order to observe the defenses and personnel. Reconnaissance yielded useful information, which was discussed at length in the safety of the Mako.

After waiting several hours in the Mako, until the likelihood was high that the pirates (or most of them) would be asleep, we took the Mako in, and used its weapons and heavy cannon to dispatch the resistance. Due to pressure hazards, scouring the area in search of any resistance we might have missed too valuable time that gave the pirates inside the bunker time to mobilize. However, the certainty of not being shot in the back was worth the trouble, as the bunker was heavily manned.

Once inside the bunker, Commander Shepard disabled or sabotaged core systems to the bunker, giving us an advantage we needed, as we were seriously outnumbered. The worst of the trouble came from the biotics within the band; however the Spectre-grade armor (acquired by Commander Shepard, as part of the Spectre benefit package) showed a profound resilience to biotic attack in comparison with the standard-issue suits.

Resistance crumbled upon the death of the lead hat—a woman we later discovered was named Dahlia Dantius—but the pirates fought to the last krogan. We made a very thorough sweep and several scans for slaves, since that seemed to be one of the sources of profits for these pirates. Despite repeated omnitool scans (and a scan run by the _Normandy_ on request), it seems that we missed the last shipment by several days—cutting the hours taken between initial touchdown and mission completion would not have been sufficient to make the cleansing mission a rescue mission.

This mission sustained no casualties, or damages to speak of, largely because of our krogan juggernaut. I can see why a horde of fighting-fit krogan might make people uncomfortable. Fortunately for us, MS Wrex had no more difficulty fighting his own people than Commander Shepard and I had in fighting our fellow humans.

-J-

Because several people asked about AA reports. Pardon the censor strips – I forgot the site doesn't allow for hyperlinks – even fake ones. ^_^;


	189. Carousel

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was a mark of a friendship solidified by bullets flying in their collective direction which found three marines standing in the middle of a carnival deep in the Citadel Wards. Williams was not sure how she got Shepard and Alenko—particularly Alenko—down here to begin with.

The scene brought back memories for Alenko, early memories. This place even had the distinctive smell of stale popcorn, grass—though the grass was artificial, like at Relay Rob's—and cotton candy. The only thing missing was the ferris wheel…no, he squinted, no there was a miniature one on the far side of the 'grounds'.

Shepard looked about with curiosity. Mindoir being as small a colony as it was, it did not invite carnivals like this. Barn raisings—or the equivalent thereof—were the closest thing she knew to this smorgasbord of 'fun' things.

O'Conner would overload at the sight of it, and the thought made her smile. O'Conner would have grabbed her elbow and dragged her forward. Shepard showed more restraint than O'Conner, but felt no less interest in her surroundings. Memories of cheap carnival amusements were not ones she shared with the others. She would never admit this was an opportunity to make up for lost time, even if it was just that.

Williams looked around with marked interest. Her experience with human carnivals did not resent the decidedly alien innovations. It was hilarious to see a hanar selling balloons. It was hard to tell the alien from the merchandise.

Shepard saw it too, and elbowed Alenko, jerking her chin at the cluster of brilliant, pearlescent balloons.

It took Alenko a moment to pick out the hanar, but he grinned.

"I'll be right back..." Shepard suddenly darted off to the left. Alenko and Williams watched her descend upon an antique-styled toy firing range.

The back wall was filled with large, under-stuffed animals and the requisite cheap toys. Alenko watched as Shepard expertly toppled the tower—not the object of the exercise.

"How about you, sir?" the attendant asked, flashing a brilliant smile at Alenko.

Shepard shifted so she leaned against the counter, quite happy to have toppled the entire pyramid in two shots, even though the goal was to hit as many as possible.

Alenko knew he should just walk away, that showing off was _not_ something an Alliance officer should do. But there was something about Shepard's smile—which was not directed at anyone really—indicating she felt that _no one_ ever won at these dumb games.

Ever.

He paid up and took the pistol, sighting along the barrel.

Shepard watched in dumb fascination.

Williams, too, goggled as Alenko's marksmanship became apparent. "He's a machine…" Williams mumbled to Shepard, who nodded in agreement.

Alenko's swell of pride at perfectionism at work was punctured when he was handed a large electric pink teddy bear, which smiled up at him in overwhelming cuteness. "Uhhh…I don't want it…that's okay…" He tried to pass it back to the attendant.

For all the good it did him, he might as well not have spoken—if he hadn't had Shepard and Williams in tow he might have been able to forego the bear. Fortunately, neither Shepard, nor Williams gave any indication that his carrying around a massive pink teddy bear was strange. He felt better after spotting a few couples with a long-suffering man carrying a massive stuffed thing. He took some comfort in not carrying the only bear…

He couldn't send this back to his mother. Carnival bears—especially pink carnival bears—were not 'for Mom' gifts.

Williams insisted on hitting a roller coaster. Shepard steadfastly refused, citing the time she spent enough time either in the Mako or enduring Joker's piloting. Alenko, who would have liked to go, opted not to, citing that bears weren't allowed.

Williams rolled her eyes, but left the officers to pick out a bench. If anyone thought the sight of two marines flanking an electric pink teddy bear was strange, they said nothing. "_Nice_ shooting," Shepard declared once the silence got uncomfortable.

"You could have done it." What was he going to _do_ with the dumb bear? He didn't have any little sisters; he didn't know anyone who would _want_ it. Williams would not, Shepard had no use for something like this…but still…

Would offering Shepard the prize might play out differently if they weren't officers serving on the same ship? He squished this—there were too many thoughts of similar nature rattling around in his head.

"Your turn—pick something," Williams dictated to Alenko.

There was plenty to look at—too much—so it was the sound of calliope that caught his attention. Alenko would have willingly admitted to having little use for carousels, but he wanted out of the 'pick a ride' hot seat.

Shepard watched the replica antique carousel spinning about. Lights, mirrors, painted horses with somewhat fantastical tack, the brilliancy of it stood out amongst everything else. True, there was little point to a carousel ride, except to laugh with friends, as quite a few people seemed to be doing.

Carousels were, apparently, a group experience.

"Wow," Williams summed it up. She, at least, had good memories of carousel rides with her sisters, hanging off the carved horses—or creatures, depending on the carousel—making wise cracks, imitating heroes from cheesy old movies…

"Yeah," Shepard agreed unthinkingly.

Alenko glanced at Williams, who was smiling nostalgically, then at Shepard. "I need a break carrying this thing. Full steam ahead, Chief."

"Nice one, El-Tee." She started a few steps forward before turning back to face him. "You're not just going to stand there and be boring are you?"

"I'll make sure neither of you falls off." Alenko winced. He _would_ put his foot in his mouth.

"Come on, Alenko, a little fun won't kill you." For a moment, O'Conner-like, Shepard's hand brushed Alenko's arm, as if she meant to take hold of it and drag him along, but abruptly thought better of it, hurrying after Williams.


	190. Teddy Bear

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Things loosened up after the carousel ride, which Alenko did not spend standing between Shepard and Williams' mounts of choice. He ended up riding alongside Shepard—and feeling incredibly stupid—while Williams picked a spot further up ahead.

The saving grace of the ride was Shepard volunteering to ride with Bear, since she would draw less attention holding it than he did. She also looked better holding the neon bear, and happier than he had seen her in awhile.

Well, if she could check her stress and worry at the entry gate like a coat, he could check the uptightness and social awkwardness with which neither Shepard nor Williams seemed burdened. No fair being a wet blanket on their party, when he had agreed _willingly_ to go.

Shepard hopped free of her perch once the carousel stopped. "There, that wasn't so bad," Alenko announced to the women, both of whom looked a little surprised—though Shepard seemed more pleased than anything else.

It was good for Alenko to relax a little. Shepard could not think of two people she would want to spend time at a carnival with—unless one was O'Conner. But O'Conner was _dead_, and would approve current company. A good friend…and Alenko.

_And Alenko…_O'Conner's voice echoed teasingly in Shepard's mind.

Shepard shivered at the thought of what O'Conner might say or _do_ if she was here.

"Hey, you okay?" Alenko asked, willing himself not to sound like a stick in the mud. He waved a hand in front of Shepard's unseeing eyes.

Shepard jumped, but grinned, embarrassed at someone having caught her spacing out. She did it so infrequently, of course people would notice. "Yeah…just thinking…I'll stop before my brain explodes." Shepard shuddered again, leaving Williams peering at her as if worried for her friend's mental health. They were off duty, she could call Shepard a friend. "So, what next? Is anyone else hungry? There's got to be some cotton candy around here…"

Alenko did not think to ask if Shepard wanted him to resume carrying Bear, until she shifted Bear from one arm to the other. She had it in a headlock. "I can carry him for you Shepard…" Him. He forgot to refer to Bear as 'it'.

Shepard smiled. "If you really want to." What guy _did_ want to walk around with a giant prize bear?

Alenko looked away guiltily. "Not really…hey, there we go." To cover the awkward moment he pointed out the cotton candy stall they were already heading for.

Williams stepped closer to Shepard as Alenko strode forward ahead of them. "Is he okay?"

Shepard shrugged, then pointed discreetly to the bear, shaking her head slightly to indicate Alenko not wanting to be seen toting the thing around. "_I'm_ having fun."

The admission surprised Williams a little. Somehow she had gotten the impression that Shepard was anti-fun altogether. "I'm not so sure about Alenko, though."

Shepard eyed Alenko critically. "He's having fun."

"How do you know?" Williams blinked in surprise.

"Because, I spent quite a few years being a socially awkward wet blanket. I know people having fun when I see them."

Williams did not question this. As with so many topics, she would just have to take Shepard's word for it—and Shepard was not in the habit of lying to people.

Williams abstained from the sudden glut of cotton candy, grimacing as the officers applied themselves to blue and sea foam green versions of the confection. It was all high sugar and all artificial—who, by rights, should want to eat _that_?

"You can still have some if you want." Shepard held out the spool for Williams to pull a piece free.

"I can't believe you two are eating that crap." Suddenly, Williams spotted the chocolate-covered frozen bananas. She looked incredibly guilty after purchasing one and rejoining the group, and embarrassed when she caught sight of the mix of 'pot calling the kettle black' grins on the officers' faces.

Poetry, sprinkles, chocolate-covered bananas…Williams must be getting in touch with her inner nerd.

Alenko and Shepard climbed out of the CRT car, Shepard beating Alenko to paying their fare. They'd dropped Williams off where the enlisted members of the _Normandy_ were quartered, and now the officers' lodging arrangements were only a short walk from this CRT terminal.

Alenko was carrying Bear again, almost at ease about it, but still unsure of the creature's ultimate fate. The problem was, what he wanted to do was probably not _wise_. It was too juvenile, and he had gratefully left that sort of awkwardness behind…or so he thought.

Shepard too, felt a little awkward as they approached the general proximity of her front door. "Well, thanks for coming with us, Alenko."

"It was fun," Alenko nodded.

Shepard turned to go, but Alenko stopped her. "Shepard?" She turned to face him. "Here," Alenko held up Bear by the scruff of the neck, as though presenting her with a rifle prior to heading dirtside. "You can have him."

"Me? Are you sure you don't…" She stopped, her stomach flopping around uncomfortably.

Alenko gave her one of those sweet, impish half-smiles. "Shepard…what am _I_ going to do with this thing? Take him." He twitched Bear so its limbs flopped and its head lolled.

Shepard accepted Bear. Her only response to the awarding of a carnival prize-bear was so teenage-esque it made her _cringe._ It was also the best she could come up with under the circumstances—though part of her suspected it was born of being bone tired and sugared-up.

Fondness for Alenko and no apparent witnesses probably helped hinder her attempts to come up with a more acceptable alternative.

She glanced around before moving as though to place a quick kiss against Alenko's cheek. She suddenly caught herself, danger klaxons ringing in her head. She changed the gesture to a sort of dizzy sway before clapping him on the shoulder, hoping he had not correctly identified the original gesture. "...thanks Alenko. I'll take good care of him."


	191. Stroll

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard found herself free to muse over the differences between running errands by herself (she strode around, a woman on a mission, with big strides suited to big marine boots) and running errands with Alenko for company (they were both pretending it was simply an extra security precaution, but neither one believed it for an instant).

Given the precedents established, most people keeping track of this sort of thing approved her precautions. A biotic was heavy firepower, whether he was armed or not, and provided a solid defense.

On her side, she simply did not feel in as much of a hurry as she usually did, quite content to walk along sedately as though out on a Sunday afternoon stroll. Except, she mused, she wasn't hanging on his arm—but that was all right.

The previous discussion—one about intergalactic zombies and the bad vid plots that involved them—wasn't really suited to arm-hanging or Sunday afternoons. Topics of conversation were one way they kept things looking professional. Appearances were important…

"If we hadn't replaced the armor, we'd be picking that crap out of it armor until we were a hundred," Alenko sighed, shaking his head.

When a wise person suggested military humor was dirty, they were right…but not necessarily in the way they meant. The ground team was still joking about thorian creeper goo stuck on armor, despite having acquired new armor all around.

Silence descended, but it was a comfortable silence.

It was easier to break silences when they fell, now, than it had been initially. He still caught himself saying stupid things, and while those occurrences were embarrassing, they did not seem like career-killing catastrophes. "So, where exactly are we heading?" He did not particularly care at the moment, and Shepard seemed in no particular hurry. It was nice to feel that there was time to walk slowly, as though they weren't riding an out-of-control roller coaster.

Shepard did not alter her pace, although a few weeks ago, she would have sped up to her usual go-do-it stride. "Just up this way." She motioned vaguely, recalling what her task actually was.

This was not about a companionable walk. This was about…Spectre stuff. Or, rather, it was supposed to be.

She preferred the walk, though. Alenko had loosened up, even when outside the mess hall. It was a real milestone.

Alenko innocently gazed off into space. That was what she'd said ten minutes ago, when they passed this spot last time. Which meant she was content to walk and talk—and was probably procrastinating. Both of which were fine with him. All the leave for the Normandy's crew between Eden Prime and here, and Shepard hadn't enjoyed a single day of it—she was always working, or seemed to be, or had work glaring at her back while she tried to ignore it. It never seemed to bother her, being chained to her desk, or to the ship. "You don't like taking shore leave, do you?"

Shepard shrugged, neither surprised by the question, nor by the personal nature of it. "Let's put it this way, the last time I went on vacation, I ended up in the middle of all hell breaking loose. And I spent the duration dodging bullets and ducking grenades."

Alenko did not need to ask if she was referencing Elysium, then realized they had, in fact, had this conversation—or one similar—before. He wanted to wince at the oversight.

"So now I just stick to my job, and snag a moment here or there for the local culture. What about you?"

Alenko shrugged. "I grew up in a tourist trap, so I tend to stick near the ship. This is nice, though." He nodded to the space between them, indicating the current idle use of time. He couldn't think of it as a waste of time.

He braked his thoughts, realizing just how complacent he felt at the moment: it had to be residual from the group outing a few nights ago. If he let the complacency stand, he might say something regrettable. Yet the possibility didn't worry him—which was odd.

So why had the concerns about maintaining his career and spotless record sort of slunk to the back of his mind to brood? "How's Bear?" It was all he could think of.

Upon surreptitiously checking, she looked mildly pleased by the question. "Crashed by my bed—he sits on my gun."

"Nice." But from her tone he knew not to take her entirely seriously. He did wonder, though, where exactly Bear's billeting was. He could speculate, of course...

"It is," Shepard agreed quietly.

This was why she was walking about as if she had nowhere to go and all day to get there, instead of striding hither, thither, and yon in an attempt to have something finished at the end of the day, proof of her hard work. It was the quiet, companionable atmosphere, a lowering of the general stress levels.

She could get all her assigned tasks done, she knew that…right now, though, she was enjoying the walk.

More than the exercise, she was enjoying the companionship of another human being for no reason past 'because I can' or 'because I like to be around this person'. It was something she usually kept minimal; people around her tended to get hurt if she let them in close. She was not sure how Alenko bypassed this essential part of her normal behavior…

But try as she might, she could not bring herself to push the thick, safety-grade plastiglass wall back into place. She _couldn't._ For once, she was determined to carve out a little sliver of her day, and do something…pleasant. It was, she knew, a selfish thing, but she wasn't sure she could bear to be any more unselfish than she was (supposedly) already.

Conversation once more drifted into a lull, but it was not the uncomfortable silences they were both so familiar with in the company of many others.


	192. Choice

Beta-read by Saberlin.

So you have a point of reference (we all, by this point, know about the ground team's driving skills (or lack thereof) so we're jumping right into the mission), this would be _right_ after Wrex stomps off when Kirrahe refers to the 'krogan problem'.

Welcome to Virmire.

-J-

Now was the time to find out whether or not Shepard was as honorable as she liked to act. He had less contact with her than others, but that was not uncommon. He was part of the team, but he was not the chatty 'share your life story and I'll share mine' type.

He understood the quarian: she latched onto the first person to show acceptance, who did not blame her for the geth problem out of convenience.

He understood the turian: he saw Shepard as some kind of ideal—if a little reserved when it came to breaking rules.

The asari was the same, except she did not want to match Shepard in the combat arena. The hero-worship overlying the attachment was sickening. And naive.

The Chief—of whom Wrex had a decent opinion—was simply a sister-in-arms. If the two women were krogan…he would not be _interested_, but they could go far. Teamed up, they might even give Shiagur a run for her money, fertile or not.

Alenko was easy: _he _was _interested_.

Wrex knew where he stood with Shepard: he was an asset; his presence ensured she would not have to fight him without some kind of warning. She did not usually put value tags on people, but she was not stupid. She had a risk assessment _file folder_ with his name on it.

She seemed to admire the krogan after a fashion…

…time to find out if that admiration went as far as returning them to a position of power.

He continued lumbering down the beach until he found a good-sized rock. He leveled his shotgun one-handed and squeezed the trigger.

This was ridiculous. Saren had a cure, and Shepard wanted to destroy it.

If these Reapers were real…no. They were real, there was no 'if' to it. Regardless, the krogan could be Shepard's best allies enough of them could be united. As things stood, they could make a pathetic last stand and hope the galaxy chose to remember their race with awe and honor.

But, restored, the Krogan Horde would make the Reapers tremble in their synthetic skins. The krogan would fight, without hesitation, with abandon: they would finally have an enemy worth fighting, an enemy every member of every clan would leap to battle.

It would be like the best parts of the Rachni Wars all over again.

And if they failed…

…how was it Williams put it? 'Epic fail'.

Shepard did not say anything immediately when she came to stand grimly beside him.

"Well? If you're here you've reached a decision."

_Boom_. It would not intimidate Shepard. It might make Williams nervous: he knew well enough she had him in scope. She wouldn't let anything happen to her running buddy.

"You know what that decision is."

Wrex turned sharply. "You know this is wrong, Shepard," he snarled.

She did not flinch, meeting his angry eyes with the stark, cold determination that had served her so well in the past.

"If there's a cure for the genophage, we _can't_ destroy it."

"Saren is the enemy…"

"Really? Saren," he pointed aggressively at the facility's general direction, "created a cure for the genophage, for _my people_. _You_ want to destroy it. The lines between friend and foe are getting a little blurry from where I stand."

"Wrex, your vision has _always _been a little blurry. That's why you use a _shotgun_."

Only Shepard would have the quad—despite being female—to point out this physiological fact at a time like this. If it was anyone else, Wrex might have exploded. It was a subtle reminder that he could tower, rage, and snarl all he wanted, but he did not scare or intimidate her. It also caused enough of a hiccup in his thoughts to let in a creeping tendril of doubt: Shepard understood the krogan far better than most humans, Wrex knew. She would not be doing this unless she had an ironclad reason.

Hating Saren was not enough. Shepard did not make calls based on emotions.

"Help me out here Shepard."

"Even if this was a cure," Shepard answered softly, her eyes glittering. "It would practically clinch Saren's victory."

"It's a chance we should be willing to take! This is the fate of my entire _race_." He stuck his face close to Shepard's until her features came into pinpoint clarity.

She did not flinch. She did not even blink. "You won't be around to reap the benefits, because the Reapers will come rolling in. It'll be a last stand, but there won't be anyone to remember it."

The shot buried itself deep. "I've been loyal to you so far. Hell, you've done more for me than my family ever did. But if we do this, I want to know we're doing this for the _right_ reasons." He had never asked her to reassure him that they were on the right track. He had never needed her to justify herself.

Until now. Now, he would either be the krogan who brought the children of Tuchanka a cure…or the one who stood aside and damned them to slow extinction.

He charged his shotgun, but did not point it at her. "Come on, Shepard. Let's hear it."

She did not go for hers. "These krogan are Saren's puppets, tools. Is that what you want? Is this 'cure' worth that? There won't be a glorious last stand, no fourth quarter comeback."

Wrex wanted to shoot something. He wanted to shoot something more than he had when this 'chat' started.

Slowly, he lowered his shotgun, crushed by the weight of what he was about to do. The blood of the Clans was already running thin. Survival of the fittest was no longer possible when the number of infants made every life precious—regardless of strength.

"You've made your point. I don't like this…but I trust you enough to follow your lead."

Shepard looked genuinely surprised. Respect was one thing. Trust was another. Like a true warrior, she knew the difference.


	193. Brave

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"I don't like this," Alenko noted quietly, "we should have seen _something_. That Thanoptis out front…with all the security Saren had, why should it vanish now?"

"Because he didn't need it, stupid," Wrex rumbled, red eyes shifting this way and that.

Shepard's stomach clenched. It was not that she sensed something _wrong_, so much as she had a general bad feeling. It was the same bad feeling she'd had upon leaving the _SSV Midway_ when it docked on Elysium. She swallowed hard, lips thinning.

That was then, this was now.

"Wow, great answer, Wrex," Alenko shot back, "don't burn anymore brain cells: you've already got one's lost and the other one's searching."

"Hmph. It's not all bad: _I_ don't sit up every night angsting."

Cool air blew across what Shepard knew was a sunburn across her pale cheeks. Everything about Virmire unsettled her—it was a beautiful place; if she was ever going to take a vacation, a lonely, untamed place like this might make the list of places to go. Yet, at the same time, it was as though the things that attracted her were merely lures, sticky feelers cast out by some carnivorous plant to catch the nearest unwary fly.

"No, you just spend half the day bitching," Shepard answered automatically.

"Bad vibes?" Wrex asked blandly.

"Yeah."

"Four eyed uglies, the back of your neck?" Alenko shifted his footing, his throwing hand flexing delicately, causing dark energy to ripple about his hand, then up his arm, ready for use.

"No. Just a bad—_there_." The unhurried, firm tone did not prompt shooting, merely sent attention to what might be the source of her heebie-jeebies: a Prothean beacon, indistinguishable from the one she and Alenko encountered on Eden Prime, except that this one had not suffered any kind of overload.

"If the beacon on Eden Prime was broken, then what are the odds that this one _isn't?"_ Alenko asked tensely as Shepard led the way, slowly, toward the pillar.

"I'd bet money," Wrex frowned.

"If it goes nuts, keep back. I don't want anyone's wetware overloading."

Alenko winced under the comment, but knew she meant it to apply to Wrex as much as to himself. Or did she? If things _did_ go wrong…there was, or would be, an impulse for him to jump in and try to save her. That action might just cause as much damage as it averted, now that he thought about it.

He hoped nothing would go wrong—it was bad enough to see a beacon malfunction _once_ (the images took this moment to play back through his mind at high speed). He was not sure he could watch that again…

…and if he thought watching was bad, what would happen to Shepard herself? The first time had messed her up fairly badly…

The same thoughts were flickering in Shepard's mind as she approached the beacon, as well as memories of pain, both that caused by the beacon and that caused by the Cipher. In theory, the latter should allow her to make some sense out of the madness, but experience taught her that anything to do with Prothean artifacts of knowledge was going to be _painful_.

If things weren't so tense, if the situation wasn't so dire, with such awful consequences for failure hulking on the horizon…she would have refused to go anywhere near the beacon. But that wasn't an option, and she knew it.

No one could see her fears or reservations. All her movements were even, careful, calm, as though she was simply studying a logic puzzle over the evening meal. Nothing betrayed the quickening heartbeat, the rise of bile to her throat, the clench of stomach muscles, or the way the Cipher suddenly seemed to grow loud in the back of her mind, like ocean waves crashing, or millions, billions, of voices crying out—though the emotion being communicated in such a cry did not, itself, translate.

It was all noise.

She pushed aside everything but the bare necessity, pared down all choices to extremely simple ones. She could either face the beacon and take a step toward stopping Saren and Sovereign, or she could not and get the entire galaxy killed.

It was simple enough, and as far as she was concerned did not really represent a choice, whatever philosophers might argue.

As Shepard approached the beacon, Alenko relieved her of her shotgun. For a moment she clenched her hand around it before forcing herself to let go. She didn't want to be unarmed, but she could see the dangers of hanging onto that weapon if something went wrong.

She stopped squarely in front of the beacon, back ramrod straight, chin lifted, as though facing an enemy, or a judge in a courtroom. For a moment she stood, waiting in tense silence. Then, as on Eden Prime, she felt as though someone grabbed her by her shirt front and hauled her into the air.

Her eyes rolled, and a high-pitched scream sounded between her ears, but the images did not cut into the soft tissues of her thoughts, the information did not re-blister seared neural passages. It was as though someone had hooked her up to a battery, supercharging her mind, accelerating thought…

…and then it was over, leaving her suddenly cold, her sweat turned chilly, her skin prickling into gooseflesh as a draft of cool air from the ventilation system brushed her face.

She dropped back to the ground, landing sturdily on both feet, with a solid finality that evidenced that not only was she alright, but she was—relatively speaking—unaffected.

"Anything useful?" Alenko asked.

"More of the same. Let's go." Facing the beacon here was, she thought, one of the bravest things she had ever done. It was one thing to charge into the heat of fighting, or to make do-or-die choices in the middle of a battle—it was something else to walk calmly up to a sleeping dragon and kick it in the snoot.


	194. Fight or Flight

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Damn. It's a popup."

Shepard stopped, turning sharply to see what had Wrex's attention.

"Oh shit…" Alenko's eyes scanned the hologram that had unexpectedly activated, as though in reaction to the beacon's use.

Shepard's eyes narrowed in recognition. Here it was, the face of the puppet master, the face of the real enemy, the one using Saren as a hat, or a mask. She prowled to the area of the catwalk clearly meant to hold support an organic for instruction. How often had Saren stood here, taking orders?

As she came level with the red hologram of what was unmistakably Sovereign—much smaller than its actual size, but still enormous—it seemed to perceive her. "_You are not Saren._"

"That's not a VI, is it?" Wrex asked Alenko, though it was hard to tell whether he was hopeful it was or hopeful it wasn't. The _Normandy's_ ground team knew enough to suspect that Sovereign wasn't just another warship. Not just a Reaper relic.

Not while it could indoctrinate sentients as it did.

Shepard's lip curled as Sovereign declaimed—mostly aspersion and so-superior distaste of lowly flesh-and-blood creatures. The same flesh and blood creatures, she thought as her fear of and relief at being finished with the beacon vanished, about to kick its many-armed ass.

"_I am beyond you comprehension. I am Sovereign_."

"We'd figured as much, funnily enough," Shepard responded dryly, yet her stomach trembled. Thankfully, it was easier to bluff to a hologram of large size than it might be to a Reaper the size of some dreadnaughts. "So you're a Reaper." She swallowed hard, glad the neck of her armor would hide the gesture.

"_Reaper_." The machine-voice stopped, seeming to process for a moment. "_A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end what they chose to call us is irrelevant._"

Shepard's lip curled; if she had had hackles, they would have risen. It was almost worse to hear the statement of irrelevancy because it lacked any and all inflection. There was no emotion. It wasn't even 'just business'.

"_We simply…are._"

She heard Wrex snort, and agreed wholeheartedly. These Reapers _were_ pleased with themselves, weren't they?

"A fifty-thousand year old computer?" Alenko asked, unusual acid in his tone. "It's probably corrupt as hell. We can fix that, though."

The double-meaning of 'corrupt' brought smiles to those with organic faces.

"There may be hope for you after all," Wrex rumbled. Shepard could just imagine him patting his shotgun.

"_Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing_."

If Sovereign thought this sort of psychological warfare would avail it, Shepard thought, it was sadly mistaken. In fact, it had done nothing so much as ensure that she would see it blown to smithereens just to prove what a recurring accident could do when motivated and forewarned. Like Alenko said about machines with attitudes: _we can fix that_.

"_Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything_."

"There's an entire galaxy of races ready to fight you." So she was stretching the truth a little. There _would _be, sooner or later, a galaxy full of races ready to fight…she just hoped it would occur in a timely fashion.

"_Confidence born of ignorance_," came the dismissive answer. "_The cycle cannot be broken._"

Maybe the psychological warfare was more effective than she originally thought: she was afraid, felt the cold pooling of fear in her stomach, yet anger and determination continued burning away both. On reflection, she decided the cold fear had always been there, she simply hadn't taken time to examine it.

Then, as though shutting a dresser drawer, she filed the fact and sensation away. She'd worry about them later.

The important fact was that the Protheans weren't the first to be wiped out. Frightening, but not pertinent. Right now, the Protheans were where this newest round of fighting started. Anything else was for people with PhDs.

"Cycle, huh?" Wrex's tone made her smile.

"_The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory…they are extinguished_."

Shepard's sense of uncertainty down-turned sharply as Sovereign—in its foolish pride—began to speak too freely. Clearly it didn't mean any of them to leave Virmire to tell the tale, but her crew was good at getting out of tight situations.

So, the _Reapers_ were responsible for the mass relays and the Citadel. It unsettled everything she thought she knew.

The way they controlled this 'cycle'. It was a beautiful plan; because it took untold generations of sapient life, it was subtle. Replicable.

And here Sovereign was, telling her everything she needed to know, concrete answers that might get the galactic ball rolling.

It was with some cynicism that she recognized the 'might' in her thoughts—clearly she didn't trust the galaxy to act in its own best interests based on _her_ information.

"_We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it_."

"They're _harvesting_ us!" Alenko's tone held equal parts shock, disgust, and animosity. The interjection dragged her out of her half-attentive listening to Sovereign and her more engrossing mulling-over of the situation as she saw it.

"Do we _really_ care why?" Wrex, ever practical, demanded.

"_My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent. Free of all weakness_." Except that it liked to _talk_. Loose lips sank ships. "_You cannot grasp the nature of our existence. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape_—"

"You're just a machine," Shepard's voice cut like a buzzsaw, "and machines can be broken."

"_Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over_."


	195. Grim

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Be aware: we're covering last chapter from an alternate POV.

-J-

Alenko's eyes widened as the hologram's motion caught his eye. It was an ugly thing, but instantly recognizable. It meant evil things, certainly, but the impact of its presence here was lessened by the fact that this was only a hologram. The real thing might be lurking somewhere, but it was harder to be afraid of a hologram.

He watched Shepard prowl over to stand before the hologram, her every motion calm, controlled, even. He made an effort not to let any of his own fears or reservations slip, but his mouth was dry, and it took willpower not to moisten his lips.

"_You are not Saren._"

The tension eased, in a way, with this declaration of the obvious. No, she was definitely _not_ Saren. _Saren_ was an ugly scumbag.

"That's not a VI, is it?" Wrex asked, nudging him in the ribs.

"Not a chance," Alenko murmured back, his words drowned out by the Reaper's mechanical monotone.

"_I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign_."

"We'd figured as much, funnily enough." The sense of calm placidity around Shepard radiated out to touch her crewmen, like a steadying hand when one's balance became uncertain. "So you're a Reaper."

"_Reaper_. _A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end what they chose to call us is irrelevant._ _We simply…are._"

They simply _were _arrogant. Alenko's lip curled in visible distaste. It sounded like bad dialogue in a bad sci-fi vid—the kind Joker liked to watch.

Wrex snorted, catching Alenko's eye long enough to roll his own.

"A fifty-thousand year old computer?" Alenko asked, unusual acid in his tone. "It's probably corrupt as hell. We can fix that, though." Oh yes. This was a team _well_ equipped for _fixing_ malfunctioning machines.

Suddenly, he liked the words of that krogan on Feros more than ever: _I'll turn your virtual ass into actual dust_. It was not _exactly_ apropos to this situation…but it worked.

"There may be hope for you after all," Wrex elbowed him again.

Was that…approval? From Wrex? Not that it mattered, but if he hadn't thought the world was turning upside down (and he had felt that way since Eden Prime) he might have thought he was going crazy.

"_Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation. An accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal. The pinnacle of evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing_."

Shepard wouldn't like that, and it showed in her posture that she didn't. He knew she took more exception to the term 'accident' than 'nothing'.

"_Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything_."

"There's an entire galaxy of races ready to fight you."

Hnn…a bit of an exaggeration, that. It wasn't likely that the thing didn't tap into the news feeds—it probably knew quite a bit about the current political climate.

"_Confidence born of ignorance_. _The cycle cannot be broken_."

It would be a great pleasure to prove this hunk of scrap wrong. He didn't flatter himself that he could crunch it up like an empty beer can, but the creative destruction of mechanical things was something he enjoyed and Shepard specialized in.

And they were _only_ two such individuals among many.

"Cycle, huh?" Wrex shook his head, indicating this Reaper had just bitten off more than it could chew. Whether it had a mouth with which to do either was as irrelevant as it seemed to consider organics.

"_The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance, and at the apex of their glory…they are extinguished_."

Alenko's blood went cold, then heated up as the full import of the Reaper's words worked themselves out. "They're _harvesting_ us!" He hadn't felt this way since Brain Camp. The momentary surge of helplessness, knowing he needed to act but momentarily unable to do so. Then the hot, boiling-over of temper as frustration, resentment, the need to act suddenly exceeded his capacity to contain, spraying scalding runoff everywhere in the wake of real action.

But he could wait until that pent-up emotion could be pointed in a useful direction. Was this what it was like being Shepard? To put an emotion or sense of injure into a suitcase, sit on the lid, and secure it closed so it couldn't distract, or cause problems? To leave it where it lay, contained, until there was time to deal with it, or an enemy at which to let the contents spring free?

Suddenly, being able to compartmentalize like that did not seem like a blessing at all.

"Do we really care why?" Wrex demanded. "Let's hurry up and take out Saren—I want a shot at this thing."

"_My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent. Free of all weakness_. _You cannot grasp the nature of our existence. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape_—"

"You're just a machine," Shepard's voice cut through the monotonous drone of superiority, a stark contrast to that and to Wrex's rumbled asides. The venom in her tone could have eaten through the Normandy's outer hull; it was a tone he'd never heard her use, but which seemed perfectly in character. She always rose to challenges—and in this instance seemed to have outdone herself. There was no fear, no intimidation: this exchange was just her reheater back sassing her, or her omnitool fluxing when it shouldn't. "And machines can be _broken_."

How was it Williams referred to the geth? 'Walking dishwashers' and 'flashlight heads'? This thing wasn't asking to be treated like a malfunctioning household appliance. It was begging Shepard (and all the support she could muster) to go at it with all the destructive power every machine shop in the galaxy could muster.

"_Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over_."


	196. Last Stand

Williams popped up, unleashing another burst of suppressing fire, her heart pounding in her throat. Pinned down...there were just too many geth…they needed backup. Lots of it. She had no choice, and cued her radio. "Commander, can you read me?"

"_Williams!_" Shepard's competent tones cut across the connection's static. "_The nuke's almost ready. Get your team to the rendezvous point!_"

Williams flinched as gunfire slammed against her cover. Flattening herself against it she cleared her throat before responding, hoping she did not sound as dry-mouthed as she felt. Water slopped around her ankles as one of the salarians fell, struck by a lucky bullet. His wiry, twisted body flopped backwards, oozing green blood into the water. "Negative, Commander! The geth have us pinned tight at the AA tower!"

She heard Shepard's muttered profanity, and mouthed it herself. It was a bad position…

Another salarian hit the deck, trying to reach better ground. "Heavy casualties." Three left, four team members counting herself…and a lot more geth. "We'll never make it in time!"

"_I'm sending Joker, this'll be a hot pickup_…"

"Negative!" For a moment Williams did not dare speak, for fear her words would be lost in the gunfire. Something cold settled in her stomach as she waited for a lull, Shepard's sharp demands for her to answer muffled by the noise. "It's too hot! He'll just get punched full of holes!"

She leaned out from her ever, unleashing a barrage of fire, ducking back behind cover almost too slow. Frak, that was close. "We'll hold them as long as we can!" She opened fire again, trying to look at one enemy at a time, and not at the moving mass.

"_Williams! I'm coming for you…don't argue; just keep your head down!_" Shepard's words ceased with perfect finality. She was still on the line, but not using it. The muted sound of gunfire on her end indicated she, too, had run into heavy resistance.

Frak this smug turian and his horde of flashlight-headed appliances! "Hang in there!" she shouted to the remaining salarians. "Shepard's bringing reinforcements!"

"_Hang in there, Williams_," Alenko's raspy voice came over the line. "_It's going to be okay." _

"Sounds good to me, El-Tee…" Williams knew Alenko at least was staying on the line, that he was waiting for Shepard to give an all-clear.

Heavy fighting ensued. It could have been minutes, hours, or days. There was no way for her to keep track. All Williams knew was that the last ship did not drop more geth. It flew overhead, back towards…

Frak. Right towards the nuke.

She knew what was happening before she could give words to it. Saren had just put Shepard between a rock and a hard place. Shepard was caught with her team divided, and a terrible choice to make. Williams pursed her lips, unable to shake or tremble. Just because she believed dying here was not the end of all things did not make the human will to survive any less powerful.

Strange how, when faced with death like this, when it seemed so unavoidable, the soul would cling to the body it was about to be ripped from. She took a shaky breath before cuing her radio. "Heads up El-Tee. Geth dropship heading your way."

"_It's already here_," Alenko sounded terse, almost businesslike, as though having been informed of a mob of newscasters banging on his office door.

Shepard swore again, softly. She and Williams could both read into Alenko's words. He was just as pinned as Williams herself, and he was the one with the bomb. "_Can you hold them off, Alenko_?"

"_There's too many_…" Alenko swore, and there was a sound of something charging up.

"_Alenko! What are you doing_?"

Williams could tell Shepard what he was doing: he was arming the nuke. This place would go up, one way or the other.

"_I don't think we can hold out until help gets here, I'm activating the bomb_. _Just making sure this thing goes off. No matter what,_" he added in a grim undertone. He was a tech, but the team had diffused enough bombs during this mad turian hunt to know even this one could be deactivated. Especially by geth. "_It's done, Commander. Get Williams and get the hell out of here!" _

"Screw that!" Williams barked, resolution settling over her. "Shepard, blowing the facility's our top priority! I don't want us _all_ to get killed because…" She had to duck more incoming fire.

"What's happening?" One of the salarians shouted. "Are they pulling out? Tell them to move faster!"

Williams agreed: better to die by nuclear fire than be shot to shit by the geth. They got her unit already, they weren't getting _her_. At least this way, she could go out with a bang…

…the insanity of making such a stupid joke at a time like this startled her so much she did not flinch when a straying round passed too close to her position.

"_The bomb's armed, dammit, get Williams and go!"_

"And you know," why was she shouting at Shepard, when it was really Alenko she wanted to yell at? "that _any_ bomb can be diffused! We don't _want_ that!" She saw enough charges disarmed since she started running with Shepard to know that if they left that nuke unattended to enact a rescue…they would _all_ end up very dead.

And that bastard Saren would _win_.

There was a tense minute during which Shepard was silent, feeling the pinch of the awful decision before her. "_Alenko_," her voice was slow, taut, and pained, "_radio Joker and have him meet us at the bomb site_."

Williams did not really listen to Alenko's response, but felt herself somehow quieting. "You know it's the right choice, El-Tee." It was. She knew, on paper, Alenko was the right choice. He was the officer, and more importantly he had the nuke.

"_I'm sorry, Ash_." Williams could imagine the bleak look on Shepard's face, knowing she was leaving a teammate to die.


	197. Hubris

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

She heard him before she saw him—that was unavoidable. However, he had more time to take in the situation than she did because she had a teammate present. Shepard was one of those souls who would look to her cohorts first.

Not a good trait in a Spectre. He also had the advantage of leverage: he _knew _her forces were split, _knew _one of her crewmen was pinned by heavy fire—wouldn't last long—and he knew very well that the agile-for-a-human mind was struggling to find a way to save _all _her comrades.

"Alenko, get to cover!"

She hadn't learned the art of sacrifice, and it was going to cost her.

Saren hopped off his conveyance. She should feel honored: he'd come here to finish her in person. It was a courtesy he would not have extended to many.

She dove for cover, faster than he expected. It only now occurred to him in force that this was the first time they'd ever stood face-to-face. Previously everything was by word-of-mouth, or that one meeting with the Council via FTL-channels.

They were both angry, she over the impending loss, he over the inconvenience she was causing him…or _was_ he angry? The question drifted in his mind like dust bobbing in sunlight.

She leaned around the outcrop of the wall then darted free of it, leveling her pistol and letting off round after round with practiced proficiency…

…only to have a biotic aura suck up the slugs. "Oh, you have _got_ to be _kidding_ me!"

Now who forgot to tell her he was a _biotic_?

He raised a hand, blue aura flaring around Shepard. She shouted as he tried to throw her, than yelped in pain as her cohort, leaning out from around the nuke, trying to pull her out of reach, with the effect that she ended up caught in the middle. Her cohort hurriedly 'let go', but a small object flashed across the distance on a biotic field.

Saren's weapon exploded, singing the turian's hand. It took him a moment to realize the mine had not come from Shepard at all, but from her apparently multi-spec cohort. He looked at the useless weapon before casting it viciously aside, gesturing to Shepard again.

She was intending to distract him from her injured teammate, but she needn't have bothered. Who cared about the biotic?

He wanted _Shepard_. She had caused him so much trouble, so much irritation…

She dodged the biotic field, and let off a strangled sort of whoop as she reached cover. "Head down, Alenko! I was wondering when _you'd_ show up!" The second part meant for him, no doubt about that—and she said 'when' not 'if'.

"You've certainly caused me a great deal of inconvenience. Your performance thus far has been…impressive." He had no _choice_ but to admit it: only a Spectre could have done what she had so far. He would not have thought her capable of being more than a passing nuisance, but she had proved herself a worthy foeman.

Who would have expected him to give a title like that to a human?

"I've been working _really_ hard!"

"Of course, it was all for nothing."

Her answer was a brittle 'keep thinking that' sort of laugh.

"You've seen the visions. You know the Reapers cannot be stopped. Believe me."

"Bull_shit_!"

"Don't mire yourself in pointless rebellion, don't let yourself be tied by petty…"

"You hear it in your head, don't you?" The question caught him off guard. "It's echoing in the empty spaces! It's stringing you along with false ideals! Sovereign's got you, and you don't realize it!"

"…what if the Protheans _had_ bowed before the invaders?" He asked quietly, playing on her personal history.

He miscalculated.

"You weren't _there_!" she hissed, "Some of us _did_ and look what it got them! Death, slavery, torture… Besides, that's apples and oranges: the Reapers _aren't_ interested in _slaves_! We're just resources to be used up! Even you! You can't be useful forever!"

It startled him, though he did not show it, how deep an insight she seemed to have.

"Sovereign _needs_ me to find the Conduit. The more it exerts itself over organic minds, the less capable they are…"

"I _thought_ you were getting sloppy."

His eye twitched. It was not so much that she said anything he had not already wondered in some back compartment of his mind. It was the fact that from those filthy human lips came things he did not want to hear from another sentient. Things that raised doubt about his mission, doubt about his aims…and doubt about whether he could still call his soul his own.

She seized on the silence. "You're being manipulated, and you're don't even care! You're going down in history not as a protector of galactic stability but as the bastard who sold us out!"

"Sovereign needs me!"

"If you're so sure, why do you get more pissed off every time I say it? Is it because you know I'm _right_, in some dark little corner that's still your own?"

"It doesn't matter: the Reapers cannot be stopped. Not be my, not by you, not even by all the Spectres in the galaxy working in concert. My only hope of survival is to join with them. Sovereign is a machine, it thinks like a machine: if I can prove my value, I become a resource worth maintaining." That was the heart of it—but how could he expect her to understand?

"_Oh_…so now this is all about _you_." The words had an edge like a knife, and they got past his plates.

He had to silence her, to silence her words. Her arguments were meaningless. They agreed the Reapers were coming, they agreed there was a way to save the galaxy…but they disagreed in methodology. It was not a disagreement he could afford to permit to continue. If he did not finish her here, now, she would only cause more problems.

He couldn't let her.


	198. Down But Not Out

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Saren snarled as the biotic pulse meant for Shepard was destabilized, sending water splashing higher than he was tall from the impact. Merciless eyes snapped to her teammate, leaning heavily on the nuclear device as though troubled by a foot or ankle. The man had thoroughly disregarding Shepard's order to take cover, one arm outstretched, biotic field shimmering around him, expression crumpled with pain and determination.

Just like a human, no discipline.

Shepard, seizing on the distraction, tackled the turian, grabbing him around his midsection. The force of the impact sent Saren staggering, but Shepard was too slow getting her footing to have time to try something else.

Her head snapped back as Saren bought his hand up, catching her under the chin.

She yelped, but did not stagger far.

Snarling, Saren shot out a three-fingered hand and grabbed her by her throat, his claws scoring her armor. Any one of his talons could have punctured her skin, plunged deep into her jugular. Were it not for her armor, he would have done so. She could still feel the pressure, though.

Humans were such fragile, soft, squishy little things…so _why wouldn't she die_?

Shepard resisted the initial urge to try prying his terrifyingly strong grip from her throat. It wouldn't do any good. Her position, dangling from Saren's grip like a brandished wet towel, also meant Alenko wouldn't be able to intervene a second time.

She was in his way.

It seemed she was in everybody's way today, in some way or another.

Inspiration hit her like a hammer—or maybe it was panic at not being able to breathe. Her fingers groped at her omnitool until a tech mine dropped from the fabrication unit. It gave a charging-up wheeze as she reached with a gurgle and clamped the tech mine onto the back of Saren's neck…

...right over his amp.

Saren cried out, dropping Shepard in order to yank the explosive away from that suddenly vulnerable fixture. His biotics had, so often, made him almost invulnerable. No one had ever tried to take them away (or blow his head off with his own amp). He scrambled, taking a blow to the gut that knocked the wind out of him in the process. He could handle that, handle the pain, he had to get the mine _off_!

It came off, to his relief, and he flung it away only to face Shepard…

…or rather, her fist as it sailed into his face. If any part of him was unbiased he would have admitted aloud that that was quite the sucker punch.

She drew back for another blow, grabbing at his fringe to hold him steady.

Mine cast aside, he caught her fist, talons clawing at the plates over her knuckles until they came loose, the ballistic mesh, already weakened, tore with the force of his clawing.

Shepard gave a shout, clocking him with her elbow, a distracting blow.

He had turned his back on her biotic cohort. While wrangling him by his fringe, she had maneuvered him so the biotic could have a clear shot at an unprotected back.

A biotic pulse landed near them, but it missed, splashing in the water near Shepard's ankle

The human missed…he had to know he would miss…

Shepard drew back and planted her now unprotected hand into Saren's jaw. His head snapped to one side with the blow, which tore the flesh over her knuckles open. Blood blossomed, leaving a streak across the turian's face, causing him to stagger back, to get away from the levo-amino source of contamination.

He punched her, a blow that caught her on the left side of her face. She reacted, possibly the way they trained her to in her military, and suddenly latched one hand around his wrist. She pivoted, trying to break his elbow by slamming her other hand into it, to force the joint to bend the wrong way.

The metallic taste of human blood seeped onto his tongue from the bloody mess on his skin. It smelled bad, tasted worse. Not that blood was supposed to smell or taste good, but it was _human_. And it was all over his face, not spatter from having removed another one of those malignant pests from the universe, but because she had the audacity to strike him bare-handed, and in so doing leave a part of herself on him.

The blood seemed to burn on his cheek and against his steely teeth. Was it possible she knew the double insult in his culture that striking the face and leaving blood there?

And what was truly incensing was the fact that he had to recognize her as an equal to take offense.

Saren pushed her back, then reached towards her cohort, throwing the biotic mercilessly aside. The biotic slammed into the wall, falling several feet—though the landing was cushioned, the mass effect field used looked weak.

He had forgotten about the earlier biotic pulse that let Shepard get that lucky, blood-letting blow in. She took advantage of his attempt to force her hand by attacking her comrade to grope in the water near her feet.

"Ha!" She raised her hands free of the water holding what had to be the biotic's sidearm.

She was began squeezing off rounds, her eyes wide, her mouth pursed in fury.

The shots jumped around, bounced harmlessly off Saren's biotic shield as he weighed the situation. The fight Shepard put up was unexpected, even without her cohort's sporadic help.

"Shepard, get out of the way!"

Saren could have told the biotic she wouldn't: she was too concerned with the safety of her comrades…

"Nail him!" She dropped to the ground, landing painfully on her tailbone, leaving yet another suddenly clear venue between Saren and the biotic…

Saren flew backwards, taking Alenko's dark energy field full to the chest.

The turian hit the ground, deciding discretion was the better part of valor; this was a stalemate.

The humans were down, but not out.


	199. Dying

"_I'm sorry, Ash_…" Shepard's tone was low and hoarse. Williams knew why: it was happening all over again; Shepard was about to lose not just a crewman, but a friend. This was the very scenario she had hoped to avoid for the rest of her life by cutting off what people would call 'normal' ties.

"It's okay, Skipper," Williams could not quite smile, but managed a look of grim determination. "I don't regret a thing…" She wanted to say something about Shepard and Alenko not feeling guilty—Shepard, at least, did not need any more survivors' guilt. After a hard swallow in which she also opted to keep thoughts of her family to herself, she continued, "You can't…you can't toss away everything you care about just to be safe, Skipper." Under normal circumstances she would never have said such a thing, but it seemed so important.

"_I'll try_."

Williams actually blinked several times, owlishly. "Good…what are you waiting for?" She pulled herself back on track. This was just delaying the inevitable. "Now get the hell out of here! Go! I'll be all right!"

They all knew she was not referring to her immediate physical state.

The connection severed, but she knew Alenko was still there.

"Tell Garrus he's a good egg." Ruthlessly, Williams yanked her ear radio out, turned it off, and flung it away. Alenko would just stay with her until the end, boy scout that he was, and that would just screw him, up more. Shepard understood her, though: there was no choice between the two of them, really. This would put the name of Williams in a new light, Alenko was the superior officer and he had the bomb. It made the choice easier.

"They're ready?" One of the few remaining salarians demanded.

"Ready! They're going to turn this place into a smoking crater…at least we've got good seats, right?" Her throat was tight, and she found her thoughts drifting to her sisters. Even returning fire was taking on an odd quality, as though she was half-dead already.

This lasted until the next bullet hit her shields…and knocked them down. "Aw, shit…" She hated waiting, and this was ridiculous…what were those yokels doing?

"Shit, I'm empty," the salarian on her other side held up his pistol.

"Thank you, Skipper…" and Williams smiled as she freed her ammo block before tossing it to him. "Shepard makes us carry spares! Load up!" If Saren thought humans were honorless scum, little better than monkeys with sticks, it was time to give him a Spartan defeat. "'Tell the Spartans, passer-by, here obedient to their will we lie'…"

"What?" The salarian on her left demanded.

Her eyes narrowed as she popped up, nailing three geth before dropping back behind cover. "Just a saying."

She popped up again before hastily dropping back down "They're bringing out the heavy guns!" Biting her lip she popped up again peppering the advancing rank with bullets, giving a shout of defiance as she did so. Oh, for

(End chapter – it's short on purpose.)

*Reference to the Battle of Thermopylae, for those who don't know.


	200. Hardball

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard's hand still bled profusely as she erupted onto the bridge. Both she and Alenko, struggling to keep up with her, dripped water. She reached the cockpit, her presence slamming into Joker like a tsunami.

"Take us back down," Shepard snarled, her face white as she clenched her fists, ignoring how the gesture tore the skin of her knuckles further.

"Shepard, your hand," Alenko, aching all over, dug out a tube of medigel, which she ignored.

Her posture, the tone of her voice, worried him. Everyone had bad days, everyone took loss badly, but this… she was squeezed between grief at a friend she knew was gone and rage, both at Saren and at herself for letting it happen.

"Take us back down." They had to go back. She did not leave people behind…there was always a chance, a possibility Williams and the salarians with her had survived. Williams was a marine. She could improvise. Adapt. Overcome. She was _Williams_…

Joker's eyes drifted to the ugly bruise on Shepard's face. "Ma'am?" He heard her, knew what she wanted, but…there _wasn't_ anything _left_. He was no happier about it than she but there was nothing to recover, not even dog tags.

The thought brought the death home to him sharply. A _Normandy_ without Williams was like…like…

"_You heard me_." This time her tone carried further than was intended, several of the soldiers manning the corridor between the helm and CIC turning to look, before Pressly, at the end of the hall, ordered them eyes forward.

"Shepard," this time, Alenko spoke in mild censure.

"I'm _not_ leaving her down there." Shepard answered savagely as she glared at the pilot. She should have killed Saren then and there, _strangled_ him if she had to. She shouldn't have let him get away. If she'd put him down, down _hard_, she could have prevented this. She wasn't fast enough, strong enough…she hadn't adapted, improvised, and overcome the situation.

She'd left a teammate behind. Practically killed her in cold blood.

It was like O'Conner, only now _she_ was responsible.

"Commander, there's nothing _left_ down there, scans are all negative, it's just a crater…" Joker had never seen Shepard like this. Yes, she sounded pissed off, but the look on her battered face… it was something in the way her eyes were too wide in her face, the way she had her lips held, as though if she did not purse them tightly they would tremble.

If they trembled, the emotion contained behind her eyes would leak free in a stream of hot saline.

"Jeff, I gave you a lawful order, now _get us down there_."

"Shepard!" Alenko grabbed her shoulder, knowing it would distract her from really sinking claws into Joker. Enough was enough. For all of them—Shepard included.

She snapped around, eyes blazing, the muscles in her jaw working, knowing she was in the wrong but unable to fully process it. "You can't be serious."

"She's gone, Shepard, you _know_ she is…"

"Scanners have been wrong before. We can't take that risk." Shepard's voice dropped to a guttural growl, as though fighting tears, rage, and guilt all at the same time. Which she was. She _should_ accept Ash's death gracefully, keep her grief private as was proper. But she _couldn't_. She had to go back, sift the ashes herself as she had been unable to do after so many losses.

She owed Ash that.

"Scanners still reporting negative, Commander," Joker put in.

"We owe it to her to check…" Shepard spat, unable to meet Alenko's eyes for very long. "Take us down."

"Belay that, Joker." Alenko murmured quietly, hoping Shepard was not so far gone as to start shouting in front of the crew. It was concern for her, as the commanding officer, as a teammate, as a friend, and as a grieving woman that prompted him. Usually it was Shepard holding it together for the benefit of everyone else…but she was only human. She had limits, and she seemed to have hit one.

Joker held up his hands. He did _not_ want to be caught in the middle of this.

No one noticed Pressly slip up, intent on hearing what was happening.

"_Joker…"_

"Belay that." Alekno cut across her. She looked murder in his direction. He could tell her she was in the wrong, and be justified, but he did not. It was here he noticed grim-faced Pressly, brow creased deeply with worry. "Shepard, don't make Pressly declare you unfit for duty."

Shepard wanted to slug Alenko. She wanted to challenge this, to ask what right he had to question her orders, to say all those things that so incensed her about other officers. To demand what right a Staff Lieutenant told a Lieutenant Commander, or a Spectre, how to run her operations?

But he was not talking to the Commander, or to the Spectre. He was addressing her, on equal footing. He was talking one human to another, because she needed to hear it. "Shepard, you're bleeding all over the place. Now that's going to get infected if you don't let Dr. Chakwas have a look at it. You can't save the galaxy with a bad hand." He was more worried about her throat, but no need to draw attention to that.

It was not his intention to take away her face, especially not in front of the crew.

Pressly never expected to hear Alenko countermanding Shepard, or pulling on her reins. In fact, the simple fact that the lieutenant _did _it (and Shepard didn't cream him right there—she looked that angry!) was almost scary in itself.

"We can't…" Shepard's rage burned away under gentle reproof, leaving only the urge to scream her grief without care as to who heard her.

"You can't honor her memory by being stupid."

Shepard visibly fought the urge to snarl, both mutinous and unable to argue the gentle logic and gentler reproof. "Joker. Please take us to the nearest comm. buoy. Pressly…you have the deck."


	201. Guilt

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Commander?"

"Yes, Alenko?" Shepard, sitting at Williams' work station, did not look up. She continued staring at the datapad before her, grim resolution on her face. She would confess it to no one, but the resolution was not to find Saren and mop the floor with him. It was not to stop the Reapers from steamrolling the galaxy. It was not even to convince the Council a very real threat was drawing the noose ever tighter.

It was her firm resolution not to cry or show her grief. The crew was shocked, stunned by the sudden loss of one of their own. They did not need to see their commanding officer break down. They'd seen enough already. "Ask."

Alenko watched Shepard place her elbows on the workbench, hands clasped and resting against her forehead. It looked as though she was praying. Maybe she was. "Why me?" He had to know, because it had gnawed at his mind and conscience for hours. Almost a full standard day.

Had she made her decision based on logic…or had she let emotion dictate? He was not sure, up until now, that he wanted to know. He simply couldn't take the doubts any longer.

"Do you want the truth straight or sugarcoated?" Shepard knew he would come to her with this question. She had expected him to come earlier. In his position…she would ask the same thing. Her conscience could rest easy on this count—but having to make the choice at all continued to haunt her, logic or not.

"Straight."

She sighed, but did not get to her feet. She thought her knees might buckle under the weight of her sense of guilt. She did not think landing on her nose would send the sort of signals needed by the crew.

Namely that all was under control even though, to Shepard, it was most certainly not.

"I know what you're worried about. But I can assure you, my decision was based on clear, concise logic. I condemned Ashley the moment I sent her with the salarians, and sent you with the bomb." The statement came out firm, and cold. So much so that Alenko knew she was tormented by the dispassionate nature of the choice; he realized he only knew this because of close association, which explained a lot about Shepard. Part of her reputation for being cool and collected came from being unknown and therefore unknowable. "You remember, Wrex asked you in the elevator, once, who would win if we were to fight, you and I?"

"Yeah, he said you would. Because you'd already thought it over." The cold settling in Alenko's stomach had nothing to do with Williams' death—though the news that Shepard's decision came from situational assessment did not bring him any comfort.

There was, he realized belatedly, none to be had whatever answers were given. At least Shepard was telling the truth, however cold, ugly, or otherwise.

"I made the choice before the threat ever materialized. The bomb had the priority, Alenko, not the person guarding it. End of story. You and I have both seen enough charges disarmed, fuses fried, and circuitry cut to know that nukes aren't foolproof. And we were dealing with Saren." Shepard was not justifying herself, merely stating facts and thought processes…but it helped a tiny bit to put it out on the table, to let someone else see her logic. It hurt her almost as much to know there was no emotion in her decision as it would have to know she had acted out of pure selfishness.

"Saren would have killed you, disarmed the nuke, and Ashley would still have died, because Saren would have re-coordinated his forces against us. I chose the right person for both jobs. Ashley didn't know anything about bombs. She said it herself…" Shepard's self-reproach became audible. She _should_ have found a way to save Williams. There _had_ to have been one. But no matter how many times she ran the scenario through her head…she knew, deep down, that there was no right answer.

There was no way to save both Williams and Alenko. None.

Alenko, mired in his own thoughts, knew Shepard never expected to find herself in a position where she couldn't get Williams out of trouble. Her logic was, thankfully, unassailable. It was the sort of choice a commanding officer, a Spectre, had to be able to make, so she made it.

It brought very little comfort, but far more than if she had let emotions override her logic. This was such a heartless thing to think that Alenko mothballed it quickly. Shepard was certainly thinking it; she did not need someone else echoing her thoughts.

"If she had been my technician, and you were the combat specialist…I would have left her with the bomb. I would have saved her when things went south, and made sure the bomb went off." It was the truth, deep down in her core she knew it. It would have broken her heart, maybe broken her altogether…but she would have done what was good for the many, rather than what was good for the one…

"It's yet another something I've got to learn to live with. Excuse me, Alenko. I need to draft the…the letter to her family…" Shepard pushed herself to her feet, looking at the datapad before swallowing visibly, her cheeks taking on a telltale tinge of red.

Alenko nodded, recognizing the termination of the conversation. He watched Shepard go, before sitting down at Williams' workstation himself. He would not have been able to do Shepard's job, and he knew it. He would have saved Shepard, thereby risking the mission…or debated too long, losing everything and everyone.

And he had no illusions that the Council would heap insult on injury with regards to the events on Virmire, kicking Shepard when she was effectively down. So, he admonished himself, he had better get it together, because more than anything, she needed all hands on deck and competent.


	202. Fragile

Shepard did not look up from her head in her hands when the door hissed open, then closed. She felt wrung out, like a washrag left in a bathtub. The footsteps were too light to be Wrex or Alenko. Not that she would expect Wrex. Tali maybe, but when Shepard looked up, when the footsteps stopped, she was not exactly surprised to see Liara standing nearby, looking worried, carrying a pair of mugs.

"I usurped the galley. It won't make it better, but it will help," the asari said softly, setting the mug near Shepard's wrist, before sitting down in the next seat over, hooking her heels on the edge. It unnerved Liara to see Shepard so…fragile. Since day one, Shepard had always come across as unstoppable, and that was admirable.

But this frailty was unnerving.

"What is it?" Shepard eyed the curiously dark blue-purple liquid.

"I…don't have to words to translate it, I'm afraid. Equate it with your chicken soup, I suppose." Liara answered. "I am sorry about Chief Williams."

Shepard picked the mug up by the rim, but did not drink it, simply toyed with the cup, before taking a deep breath and swallowing. "So'm I."

Liara looked down at her drink, then back at Shepard. The asari knew Shepard would have a meltdown if she caught Liara was doing anything 'asari' with her head—even if Shepard's thoughts practically screamed. The justification of helping did not totally ease Liara's disquiet about her delicate snooping. "She was a good soldier, wasn't she?" Liara asked tentatively.

Shepard nodded numbly. "Yeah. One of the best." Swallowing hard, the lump in her throat protesting, Shepard set the mug down, untouched. "I should have…have found a way."

"What could you have done?" Liara asked cautiously, Shepard's alternate plans beat like fat raindrops on glass, half formed, useless, but many.

Shepard shook her head. "I should have left Garrus and Wrex…let them keep an eye on the bomb and…and gone after Williams myself."

Liara looked at her drink, then sipped at it. Shepard might have fooled someone else, but not Liara, not today. An echo of an emotion attached resonated in Shepard's mind like a tuning fork; Liara was sure it pertained to Alenko.

"I could've gotten to her." Shepard swallowed hard.

"Drink it, it really helps," Liara ordered.

Shepard obeyed autonomously and nearly spat it out. It tasted all right, but it also gave the feel of 'pins and needles' in the soft tissues of her mouth. "Whoa…" however, she had to admit after forcing it down –the curious sensation vanishing several inches down her esophagus—her mind cleared a little.

Liara knew it would not help Shepard to hear that everyone else agreed with her decision—even if no one, Shepard inclusive, liked it. Shepard did not really want anyone to agree with her, she wanted them to blame her, to hold her accountable for the death of a good persons, a god friend—which confused Liara. "Blaming yourself won't bring Chief Williams back."

Shepard looked up, her expression one of reproach softened by the knowledge Liara was only trying to help. Still, it was a forbidding look. "If you poke around any further, I'm going to take a lot of offense." She said calmly.

Liara flushed purple.

"I appreciate the intent, Liara, I really do." and Shepard left it at that, trusting Liara to concede to her right to privacy of thought. She still wasn't sure why the asari were so perceptive that it bordered on creepy…but the literal 'how' didn't matter?

"I just wanted to help." Liara said quietly.

"I know." Shepard took another sip from the mug and gagged again, but swallowed it anyway. "On second thought, I don't want to know what's in this."

"No, you don't."

Shepard looked up, and saw the corner of Liara's mouth twitch. "You're joking, right?" There was a _reason_ Shepard usually avoided alien cuisine.

"A little. I'm sorry."

"Nah—it was a good one…guh…"

"Now what?" Liara asked, glancing at Shepard who was silently gagging at an unpleasant taste.

"I've got to finish drafting this letter to her family…I…we _should _head for Amaterasu, so I can…can deliver her…her stuff." It hurt too much for her to finish the sentence any less lamely. Shepard did not want to see the tears, did not want to bring the bad news, did not want to explain why this particular sister and daughter was stone dead, without even a body for the bereaved to bury. "A letter to her family just doesn't seem enough, somehow."

Liara did not need any asari ability to know Shepard did not relish this task, was perhaps even a little afraid of it. Yet at the same time an undercurrent of thought pulsed like throbbing pain, a hope that the Williams family would be angry, and would throw the hard, hurtful words not forthcoming from the crew. Almost as if Shepard felt she _should_ be punished for leaving Williams.

For surviving.

"If there is anything I can do to help…" Liara offered very gently, unsure what was causing this horrible undertone to Shepard's thoughts.

Shepard shook her head, and got to her feet. "There isn't." And with that she walked out, leaving Liara and the mugs.

Liara did not need to 'poke around any further' to know Shepard was not simply trying to get the worst over in walking off to draft the letter. She was running away, because she did not want to discuss how she was feeling with Liara. Liara got to her feet, unwilling to simply fade into the background. Shepard was bleeding to death from a wound she refused to seek treatment for. Perhaps she was not sure _how_.

Well, Liara knew who to talk to about that, because she watched people's drift. There was one person Shepard would talk to, the person who could reach her.

Liara only hoped he was not too preoccupied with Williams' death to notice the unseen wounds inflicted on Shepard.


	203. Screening

Beta-read by Saberlin.

AN: The last message sent to Ashley M. Williams by her sister Abby Williams. The message was returned to the Williams family on Amaterasu in the state in which it was found: unviewed.

-J-

_The recorder clicked on, and the image shuddered as though hands were grappling for it. "Sit down already!" A female voice ordered, and the recorder came to rest with a thud of finality._

"_Abbs_," came a male voice, plaintive but with little hope of getting out of this ordeal.

"_Look, she's going to hate you on principle; best if she hates you when she can't do a damn thing about you…or to you. I told you what happened to the last sister's boyfriend._ Sit."

"_Yeah, but that wasn't Ash doing the beating_!"

"Ashley—_you don't know her, remember? And if you think what Sar did was rough, Ash is a marine. She's running with a Spectre, and she'll break you in half_." Abby paused. "_Ash, not the Spectre…though if Ash asked nicely I'm sure the Commander would oblige her_."

"_This isn't a good way to get someone to do what you want, Abby_." Abruptly a view of two people from chest to hip appeared. "_Come on, Abbs_..." the man pulled Abby Williams into his arms and the sound of a kiss ensued. A very short kiss for she stepped back with a laugh and an annoyed 'you!'.

"_Hey! This thing's live! Don't let me forget,_" she poked him in the diaphragm, "_to go back and erase _this_! She doesn't want to see you pawing me! Or snogging me, either—no big sister wants to know about that_!"

"_I thought it was best for her to know now while she can't do anything about it…besides, she might have to get used to it_…"

They both shared a chuckle before Abby shoved the man down into a seat, leaning over his shoulder to adjust the recorder. "_Hey, sis_!" she almost shouted, hands possessively on the young man's shoulders. "_Look who it is! Him, not me_," she added quickly, pointing to her companion. She then nudged him, prompting.

Andrew was a handsome young man with a creamy tan complexion and gray eyes of the kind that seemed to take on the cast of colors nearest to him. Right now it shifted between the green of his shirt and the blue of the recording beam when he turned to look at Abby. "_This is awkward—can't I just say 'hi' next time she's in town?_"

"_I don't _know _when she'll be in town, and chances are _you _won't be here when she is! Come on._.." she nudged him again. He caught her arm and pulled until she leaned against him, rather than loomed over him.

"_Name's Andrew—she may have told you she kicked my ass_." Abby choked. His expression turned impish, causing a dimple to appear in one cheek but not the other. "_It's a tissue of _lies."

"_Andrew_!" Abby shrieked, half amused, half appalled, and apparently wondering if she should not give up and record the message herself and leave him out of it.

"Lies I say!" Though he turned to direct the comment at Abby. "_You sure you want to do this, Abbs?_"

"_And where exactly did you bruise again?_" Abby demanded. "_Oh, wait, I know, it was your _ego, _because you were bragging to your friends…_"

"_Hey, if I had to get my ass kicked, I'd rather it be by a pretty_—"

"_Watch it, Sailor. My sis is going to grind you into liver paste if you're not_ _careful."_

"_You sure that's 'liver' paste and not 'loser' paste_?"

"_How about 'deader' paste? It'll all be the same to Ash_."

They shared another burst of laughter, and Abby wrapped her arms around his neck.

"_Okay, I'll behave_," Andrew sighed as though it would be a very difficult exercise, complete drudgery. "_Hey Ash—ley_." He appended the second syllable only when Abby poked him in the shoulder. "_Come on, you'll let me call you Ash, right? As long as Abbs wants to keep me around? Please?_" The puppy dog look was a good one, and made Abby laugh.

"_I keep telling you, she's immune_!"

"_Doesn't matter—I'm not trying to _charm _her. I just want her _not _to shoot me. Hear that, Ash? That's a white flag of parley_."

"_Okay, you know what_?" Abby addressed Andrew instead of the recorder. "_Maybe I should just send this as is, so she knows what a dingus you are._"

"_Hey, if you'll recall you and I held onto our swords; a dingus is, and I quote you, 'someone who doesn't know a hilt from a handrail'. You should send this rendition: then she can see you're happy, and that I'm harmless._"

"_Nah, she won't believe that. Any guy a Williams expresses interest in immediately goes on the other Williams' watchlists. It's nothing personal._"

"_Uh-huh._" Andrew turned to the recorder. "_I don't think you're half as scary-evil as Abbs wants me to believe. Looking forward to meeting you, Ashley_." He waved at the recorder to indicate sincerity, but still managed to sound flippantly unconcerned.

Over Andrew's shoulder, so he couldn't see, Abby bared all her teeth as she mouthed, "See? This is a good one! Come home soon and see for yourself!' Apparently the fact that he did not find the prospect of meeting her tough-as-nails marine sister, (the one stubborn enough to go into a career path where her name was already blacklisted) daunting was a major point in his favor.

"_Anyway, looking forward to seeing you in person—I said that already. Damn. Oh well, I'll bet Abbs here doctors this thing so I look like a complete geek…"_ He cast Abby an appreciative look.

She kept a straight face in reply. "_I dunno, Andrew—I've seen the big guy geek on Ash's boat. The Alliance is moving to a whole new breed of geek." _

Andrew drew himself up, pointedly ignoring the comment. He opened his mouth, but Abby did not see it, so her next words cut off anything he meant to say.

"_So here he is! No surprises, and it's just like you were home! Come home soon—I mean it!"_


	204. Meddle

Beta-read by Saberlin.

Chronologically, this takes place a few hours after "Fragile".

-J-

Liara squared her shoulders resolutely, chewing on the inside of her lip. Shepard may have said she wanted to be left alone—particularly by drift-reading blue people—but the drift-reading blue person had _insight._ And that insight was this: Shepard wanted to be left alone, but she needed someone to refuse to do so.

But not just anyone.

Liara's concern for Shepard's mental state finally outweighed her disinclination to meddle, as did her irritated decision that she was _no longer a child_. She'd grown up upon the death of her mother—and now it was time to think like 'the grown-ups'.

Oddly enough, it was this common ground that seemed to make Shepard more comfortable in her—Liara's—presence. They would never be close friends—like Shepard and Williams had been—but there was a certain comfortable camaraderie since Noveria.

Shepard was a friend, and so should not be permitted to suffer needlessly, which brought Liara out of her workspace and into the medbay proper, where Alenko 'wrapping bandages' (as medbay busywork was sometimes called) for Dr. Chakwas, to avoid being in the crowded mess hall.

Humans tended to group up when grieving, or coming to terms with loss. They were remarkably like asari in this respect.

She glanced around for Dr. Chakwas. She scraped the last vestige of commitment for her meddling from Alenko's drift. She couldn't even describe it. It just _was_, and the closest she could find was 'conflicted and miserable', but that fell short of the mark. "May I have a word, Lieutenant?" she asked, trying not to sound half as upset as she felt.

Shepard was not the only one suffering, but Shepard was the only one who held her grief in. If it weren't for her one lapse on the bridge, just after the explosion, there might have been accusations that she simply didn't care that Ashley Williams was dead.

"Sure…what?" It was a laudable effort to sound like his usual self, but it didn't fool Liara.

_And I'm not even trying, _she though darkly. "Go find Shepard."

"Why, did she disappear?" A crease appeared between his eyebrows. His drift spiked, coloring with worry.

"No. But she needs you to find her."

Alenko look around—where were _people_ when you needed them? "I don't know what to say to her." There, that was fair, right?

"Then don't say anything." The differentiation between friends and lovers was sometimes hard to distinguish with humans, but she was fairly sure that 'friend' did not quite cover the dynamic between Alenko and Shepard.

It came home to Alenko, in an instant, how much Liara had grown up since Noveria. He had _known _she had, the same way he knew he had ten toes. He simply didn't think about 'ten toes' until he stubbed one of them, or dropped something heavy on them.

Alenko prayed fervently that someone would need him to do something. Something official that would take him away from that level gaze. A level too-knowing gaze...though that might have been his conscience—he believed Shepard's assertion, but there was always linger doubt...

"Then tell her, at least, that you do not hate her. She is afraid. She is in pain. She is one woman against the galaxy and right now…she has no one to lean on, because she takes her role as leader here to an unhealthy extreme." More accurately, Shepard simply did not _want_ to lean on anyone else, but would if Alenko offered her a shoulder.

Alenko simply gaped at Liara. He had just reached the conclusion that Shepard needed nothing so much as _space_. Or, rather, space between herself and the one she'd sacrificed Williams for. He believed her when she said she made her choice for the right reasons…but he saw on her face as clear as if it were penned in ink across her forehead that for her there was no right answer. "I don't know…she just needs some space…"

"I _know._" Liara declared, her tone redolent with certainty. The asari crossed her arms, keeping her voice low. "I think she's in the garage—almost no one else is. And…it's not a place most people would think to look for her."

Alenko scowled, wondering if he wanted to ask 'how?', and deciding he didn't. "Why tell me?" He already knew 'why', but this whole conversation left him caught between wrong-footedness and charging off to see if he could help.

Liara gave him an eloquent look, before shaking her head. "She doesn't _want _anyone else's help. Or presence." She strode back to her workstation and threw herself into her chair, practically daring him to say one more word to her.

The conversation was closed.

Whatever Shepard saw in Alenko, _she_, Liara, didn't see it. The man was slower than a glacier and dumb a box of rocks.

But he took the hint.

After half an hour of unsuccessfully trying to work on the latest Prothean datadisc, Liara stomped out of the medbay, over to the coffee machine, and rescued an abandoned _SSV Normandy_ mug from one of the cabinets. All the pain and sadness on this ship made her irritable, since she could not escape it. It was like…toxic fumes filling the air.

"Do you mind if I join you?" It was such a perfect imitation of Shepard that those present at the table recognized it as familiar, but could not quite place it.

"Sure." The requisitions officer nodded to an empty chair.

Liara set her coffee down then threw herself into the chair, uncharacteristically slouching like a high school student by the last twenty minutes of the school day. The coffee tasted foul, scalding and foul, but it suited her mood.

"Bad day?" one of the men asked.

"The worst," Liara grunted, taking another sip of her coffee. The flavor was bad, but it did not seem as bad as it was a few minutes ago. Which meant…Liara flopped her head into her hand. It meant she was _acclimating_ to it.


	205. Plushie

Beta-read by Saberlin.

The last message sent to Ashley M. Williams by her sister Sarah Williams. The message was returned to the Williams family on Amaterasu in the state in which it was found: unviewed.

-J-

Sarah Williams' face appeared in the recorder, drawn into lines of suspicion. "_Okay, I just opened the box from you and I _demand _an _explanation! _Are you _insane_? Are you _sick_? Are you just _weird_? Look at this!_" Sarah held up with two fingers a plushie turian with overlarge embroidered green eyes. "_You see this? _This _is a plushie. _This," she turned the recorder to look at an extranet terminal display, "_is a turian_. _Plushie_," she dangled the toy before the recorder, "_turian_," the image of the turian reappeared before Sarah whipped the recorder around, a smile toying around the corners of her mouth. "_Do you see the _problem _with this, Ash?_ Turians _aren't _meant _to be_ _cute and fluffy_! _They're _not!"

She frowned at the plushie, which continued staring, with vapid good h_umor on its alien features. "I have, by the way named it. Him. I am calling _him…Garrish. _You know: your buddy Garrus. Your name 'Ashley'. Garrish. Payback's a bitch, huh?"_ Sarah cackled evilly, still dangling the toy contemplatively from her fingers. "_I dunno, maybe there's one or two out there who aren't complete jerks—trust you to go around finding the best in people…uh…aliens. I'm going to have this off my rearview mirror….not by the neck!_" She added quickly, stiffening at the implications of her words. "_He's standing right there, isn't he? You're letting him watch this, aren't you_?"

Sarah sighed, frowning at the turian plushie as she rotated it this way and that to take in the small details. It was obviously a cheap Citadel souvenir, but it had novelty value. "_Tell Ash: this is just insulting." _She shoved the plushie close to the recorder until the texture of the felt mandibles could be easily seen. "_Well...since he's watching...tell her you're not cuddly, you're not are you_?" A look of shock_ed horror spread over Sarah's face. "Dude—Garrus—cover your…ears…or whatever it is you turians call them…" the awkwardness was devoid of malice, despite the poor phraseology. "You got them covered?" She leaned toward the recorder, lowering her voice, "Ash…please tell me that 'Garrish' isn't something I need to worry about. Ash. Tell me. Seriously, tell me by return post. Nothing against your buddy, but I'm not ready to think about my beautiful sister and some alien with a human fetish. I'm not. No bigotry involved, I promise…by the way, 'bigot' is an ugly word to direct towards your sister. Okay,"_ she said it unnecessarily loud, "_you can uncover your…ears…now!_"

She regarded the plushie again, chin propped in her hand, before she glanced back at the recorder. "_At least it doesn't squeak—that'd be too much, right? It's so _weird_, by the way, to reference someone I'm not totally sure is watching this. Ash, you better share…or maybe you shouldn't. I don't know: use your best judgment—but the rest of this message is for _you _and it's _private_."_

Sarah let the silence stretch to give any onlookers time to politely walk away. "_I feel a little bad after your last letter; I never meant to imply that _all _aliens were jerks, though I certainly seem to remember someone taking a harder line than that…must've been a hell of a firefight to get you to budge on your original assessments of all persons xeno._"

Sarah sighed. "_I guess you have to be out interacting with the aliens, and not much chance of me doing that, since I'm not going into the Alliance, but I'm sure the old rule of 'a friend of a Williams is a friend of the family' will hold up. Isn't it hard, though? I mean, with almost any species you can tell if they're smiling or not… but turians don't have lips. How do they smile if they don't have lips? Is it…is it really toothy?" _The hesitant question contained a note of genuine interest. "_They've got a lot of teeth, sis; I can't imagine a smile from that quarter would be a reassuring thing."_

She returned her attention to her plushie, continuing to examine its orange armor. "_No offense to anyone, but this cute little dude looks like a cute little parking cone._" Sarah giggled to herself. "_I dunno, maybe that should be another comment you don't share…_

"_Or maybe it's too late, and you'll think about that every time you see your buddy. You'll imagine my little Garrish's orange armor and think: 'Garrus, Garrus, you look like a parking cone!" _Sarah cackled at this. "_It's late_," she announced as the laughter died out. "_It's very late, and I should have been to bed two hours ago…part of this is sleep deprivation-induced insanity—so you know I'm being totally honest."_

Sarah rubbed her eyes and leaned over, as though checking a clock. She did not appear to like what she saw there. "_Okay, so you knew this was coming, the question everyone wants answered and you've got someone stuck in a confined space so he can't get away without answering: can turians purr? I don't care what it takes to get them to do it—I'm not sure I want to know—but _can _they?"_

A loud snore filled the air, punctuated by whiffling sounds, indicating the source was a dog.

Sarah winced, the sound abruptly joined by a yip and the sounds of sinus problems. "_Ulysses!_" Sarah scooped up the puppy, who wagged his tail enthusiastically, ceasing the imitations of Sadie's snores. "_So here he is, the reason for the sleep deprivation. Every time I go down h__e comes and drools in my ear! I put him outside and he howls like he's being _murdered! _If he wasn't your dog's pup, he might have to _worry _about being murdered…_" But Sarah's severe expression softened as Ulysses gave her cheek a few energetic licks…

…right before he lunged at Garrish, unwisely left sprawled on the desktop.

"_Ulysses! _No_!" _The shriek could have woken the dead. Sarah's look of panic as she snatched the plushie out of harm's way was utterly comical.


	206. Deep In Thought

Beta-read by Saberlin.

This chapter actually fills in between several upcoming chapters - there just wasn't a better place to put it than here. Some of the POVs take place before 'Meddle', and Liara's takes place afterwards.

-J-

Garrus sat at Chief Williams' station. The Normandy felt so empty without her. He could not claim to have been her friend—not really—but one did not need friendship to be brothers (and he used the word _very _loosely) in arms. He was not sure about her religious beliefs, but according to his own, he hoped her spirit would stay here—or at least hang around until they finished doing what needed doing.

Williams was a good soldier, she probably _was_ hanging around, chafing to participate in the upcoming fight. She could always be counted on when diplomacy failed. He would never say she would have made a good turian, but she would have made a good half of one.

He took that back: Williams would have made a good turian, she was a _good_ soldier. Shepard was of that grade of human as well, but that was to be expected. To lead this party, to do the task at hand, it took turian-brand toughness.

But it was strange to see that toughness in these soft little human females.

"You'd better hang around, Williams," he muttered, turning to his sniper rifle's maintenance with a single-mindedness born of a desire not to dwell on unpleasant things.

-J-

The entire atmosphere of the Normandy was depressing, depressing and tense. The crew was _looking_ for someone to fight, and if Shepard gave them too much leave when they got to the Citadel, she was going to spend hours bailing them all out for fights or other forms of disorderly contact. Mostly for fights.

This was, at least, Tali's impression. She had not known Williams very well at all, but she could appreciate anyone who carried a garrote around. Perhaps she should have made a better attempt to interact with the chief, after all, Williams' prejudices were more turian-centric than quarian-centric.

Or maybe they were just too different. Whichever it was, Tali wished Williams a safe, quiet place in whatever afterlife she believed in. After dying in a nuclear blast like that, it was the least Williams' deserved. Tali glanced at the engineering crew. One or two of them held their mouths twisted into a grimace, the precise meaning of which was hard to sort out, so Tali gave up trying. It was enough to lump it under the heading of 'grief' and be done with it.

The loss would hit Shepard and Alenko hardest—the whole ship had heard about the altercation on the bridge in the immediate aftermath of Virmire.

-J-

Of everyone on the ship, Wrex alone remained generally unphased by Williams' sudden passing. The humans were only human, and they didn't get it. He was surprised Shepard didn't get it either, but he suspected to breech the subject was to open himself to her attempts to wail the daylights out of him.

She could try, she might even benefit from it. He would never admit to considering the thought that a human being could put him on the ground. It was worse to admit one _had_, and he was not eager for that list to lengthen. Let that Robbins woman have her name at the top of a list, be unique.

Still, watching the humans—and the turian—he wanted to shake his head slowly. They did not get it: Williams' death was a good one. Not everyone _got_ to do down with such panache, with honor as well. Hers was a story that would persist, as long as there were those who knew her and remembered the events. A warrior could not ask for much more when they died.

What was it about humanity that bred such fierce little warriors?

Never mind, fierce was fierce and dead was dead. He was surprised the turian looked so pathetic. He, of all people, should appreciate the honor of a 'hero's' death (to use the turian and human expression).

-J-

Liara sat in the back of the medbay, her hands clasped on her workspace, her head bowed. The ambient atmosphere of the ship made her eyes ache, or perhaps it was merely that sensitive streak running through her, the empathy that made her able to perceive more than many asari.

Of all on the ship, she was most aware of the shift in Williams' attitudes from unveiled mistrust of all entities non-human, to a sort of neutral tolerance. It was a long way to come, for a woman with such staunch preferences—and now, there would be no continuation of the learning. Not on this plane of existence, at least.

Strange how she never considered that this mission might claim lives. She did not see how she had managed to make such an oversight, but there it was. It was not naiveté, or maybe it was. She, like others, had fallen into the trap of believing Shepard was more than she was, capable of bringing everyone back alive, no matter how black and bleak the situation was.

And now Shepard was paying for their over-abundance of faith in her abilities. It was mortally unfair, but that was life. The ship seemed oddly lopsided without Williams anchoring down the master-at-arms' station in the garage. Even Liara felt it, and she rarely saw the garage.

Liara put her head on her arms, blocking all light, but not the ambient 'noise'. Perhaps she ought to consult the doctor about some pain—

No, no that would not do. She could deal with the pain. Why complain about it, when everyone else was in as much pain as she—and emotional pain being by far the worse? She must learn to be stronger, more assertive more consistently, not just in fits and starts. Then, perhaps, she might be a little more useful in this venture.

Shepard sometimes claimed it was all right for her to remain a scientist, a researcher, and that was how she could back up the crew. Liara knew there was more to it: Shepard did not take unnecessary risks.

And yet they had lost Williams.


	207. Share

Beta-read by Saberlin.

The last message sent to Ashley M. Williams by her sister Lynne Williams. The message was returned to the Williams family on Amaterasu in the state in which it was found: unviewed.

-J-

The holorecorder switched on, revealing Lynne Williams.

"_Hey, Ash. I know it's about time for you to send your next letter—you're not quite clockwork, but I can usually guess—so I thought I'd ambush you with this one. I want to see your CO! And the Lieutenant! I know you've talked about us, probably callused their ears with us, so I figured I ought to say 'hello' in person. You can pause me now while you run and go get them._"

Lynne remained silent for a few seconds, ample time for someone to hit pause without clipping off the first few letters—or first few words—of the next sentence.

"_So, I'm the infamous Lynne—the nervous one! I know Ash, she'd have you think I was on the border of a nervous breakdown every day of the week. I want to take a moment to say I'm simply aware of the possibilities and plan for as many as I can... _

"_Wait a minute_…_did anyone hear that?"_A wicked grin spread over Lynne's face, evidence of the joke. Her smile was painfully similar to Williams'.

"_First, to Commander Shepard—you're probably busy, so I'll make this quick. Sarah _still _thinks you're an evil taskmaster—and I agree—but it seems to work for you. Seems to work for Ash, too, come to think of it, but if she _has _been sharing her mail (as I strongly suspect she has) then you already know I think of my dear sister as an adrenaline junkie._

"_And if you didn't, you do now, so please try not to overindulge her habit. It's like drugs: you need a little more every time. Anyway, keep looking after Ash, we've got a Williams Family Reunion coming up next year. She's got to be there for this one: she's _got to_._

"_And for the lieutenant, the cute one—don't make that face, Ash, he's cute and he already knows it. I'm not the one wearing the uniform, my judgment's not biased, I can weigh in..._

"…_how's it feel to have yourself talked over by a prerecorded letter by a coworker's sister? Ash can append your answer to her next letter to me—I suppose I shouldn't have done it, but I promise I'll behave now. That and it's too late to go back and re-record this—I've had to start _twice _because of Ulysses, one of the dogs. You wouldn't make me do it again, would you? _Would _you? _

"_While I've got you here, I did want to thank you for signing our latest conversation piece…it _looks _like it used to be a _gun…_but that can't be right…can it? Ash wouldn't say _what _it was, only that it's your handiwork. So, thank you. It's on the family coffee table where visitors can see it._

"_Anyway, you can let them go now, Ash, unless you plan to share the rest of this letter, in which case, I hope a look into boring life and family business is good for you._" Lynne stopped, seemed to contemplate deleting the message and starting all over, but shook her head, as though to herself. Clearly the purpose of the letter was to showcase herself as she was: she would not go back and edit out any misspoken phrases.

"_I'm actually not at home just now—I'm at a hotel (won't say where, you can pretend it's somewhere glamorous and exotic or dismal and dingy as you like, and enjoy wondering why I'm here and what I'm doing—like we have to with you. Payback's something, isn't it?)." _The Williams-esque smile reappeared. "_Still, I managed not to forget anything…and remembered a couple things I could have left at home but…didn't. I'm a little surprised at myself._

"_So, moving right along…_thank you _for the souvenir! It was one of those things I could have left at home, but couldn't _bear _to, so you can rest assured that Martin is going to be a seasoned traveler—he's already off to a great start. It might seem silly, toting him around like this, but we all need at least one silly thing in our lives. I know yours…but I won't say anything about it. Just in case folks are still listening. _

"_I think a plushie hanar is the _best _in the box of plushie souvenirs. I laughed _so hard _when Sar exploded over her plushie turian (he really is cute!)—and Abby's puzzlement over her…the box called it a 'pyjak' (she's calling him Campbell, don't ask me why). _

_Ash, you should know because I think you don't—this thing's tentacles _move _when you squeeze it tummy—er, _body_. The hanar, not the pyjak. Obviously._"

Lynne immediately produced a hanar plushie, the body of which was a little larger than the size of her hand, fingers and all, and squeezed it. The tentacles, true to her assertion, wobbled and wiggled where they joined the body, causing the lengths of the appendages to sway eerily.

"_On second thought,_" she inspected the toy, "_you probably _did _know that, which was why you chose it—freak me out when I least expect it. I hate you. But I love you more than I hate you, so if you died tomorrow you could die happy. Not that I'm expecting any trouble—can't be worse than geth on Feros, right? Those things were huge…things _can't _get worse than that._

"_Anyway, write me soon! Love, Lynne._

"_Commander, Lieutenant, if you're still listening, I don't know any military-esque ways to sign off, so I won't even try. I'll probably say something innocently enough, and you'll end up laughing your heads off because you know something I don't, or the military-issue translator units run differently than those of normal people. Ah, well, it was good…'talking' to you. Or should it be 'talking at you'? I don't know. Anyway, thanks for the conversation piece (and the signatures on it!) and try to keep Ash and yourselves in your respective one pieces._

"_Lynne."_

The recorder cut off.


	208. Brood

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was clear, when Joker came down to the mess, that Tali was waiting specifically for him. The ship was as quiet as an empty coffin, in a state of shock at the sudden gap in their ranks. Not that he had seen any of this since Shepard stood shouting on the bridge. He could imagine what she was thinking, and he was certain he had an insight into Shepard in this moment that no one else did.

Not even Alenko could truly appreciate the fact that, for Shepard, losing Williams was like losing Gina all over again. Shepard had lost one friend to enemy fire (and then the body to bombardment). Now she'd lost another friend to nuclear fire…and unlike in the case of Gina's death, Shepard had left Williams behind.

"Hey, kid." He sat down heavily across from Tali. She sat with her head bowed, her elbows on the table, hands clasped.

"I don't feel like a kid anymore, Joker."

There was a touch of cynicism that he'd never noticed. But then again, they hadn't lost anyone up until now. "Guess I don't _really_ think of you as a kid," he allowed with a shrug. It wasn't exactly true, but a little white lie in this case didn't seem inappropriate.

Tali nodded once and let the subject drop. "I miss Williams."

Joker was not surprised to hear this—Williams had grown tolerant of the non-humans, and while she would never form incredibly close attachments to any of them (even if she hadn't died) she had gotten to the point of _liking_ couple of the nonhumans.

Enough to teach Tali a bit about knife fighting, according to scuttlebutt. He hadn't seen this, but from what he understood Tali had put the new skills to good use more than once. "I'm going to miss her too." It was as though someone had taken a piece of the wall out of his ship. It just…wasn't right.

Was she crying under that mask? It was impossible to tell, and her posture was not particularly revealing in this moment. It was as though she had somehow aged several years. "You never lose anyone before?" It was a graceless question, but it came out anyway.

Good grief, he was turning into Alenko!

"My mother died when I was small, so in a way the answer is yes," Tali's voice did not waver. Instead, it had taken on a sort of forced-calm. It reminded him vaguely of the way Shepard had, on several occasions, pushed one problem aside to make room for one more immediate. "But I've never lost a friend like _that_."

He understood 'that' to refer to the fashion of Williams' death, not as any indication of unusual friendship. "There's nothing we can do about it…"

"Oh yes there is," and there was an edge like a kitchen knife to her tone.

"I was going to say," Joker repeated calmly, "there's nothing we can do past finishing what we've started."

Tali didn't flinch, but she looked off to one side, as though a little embarrassed. "I've never really wanted to see someone dead before. Never felt like I could land the killing stroke myself, for purely personal reasons."

He would have liked to tell her that things would be okay, but that was a little too much of a lie—and he had the shrewd idea that she would resent it. How could things be okay? Chief Williams was dead, blotted out in a blast of nuclear fire? It pissed him off just thinking about it in those unvarnished terms.

Tali's three-fingered hand appeared on his wrist, bringing his attention to the fact that he had snapped the plastic spork the way his bones would snap if he wasn't extremely careful in his day-to-day life.

He pulled his arm back until he could catch her fingers. "We'll make it right." There, that was okay, wasn't it?

"Yes." Tali's word was still firm, but a tremor passed through her hand, clear indication that she was still forcing the calm when she spoke. Clearly making it right involved several corpses and a mechanical husk. "But it doesn't really stop with Saren or even with Sovereign, does it?"

It didn't and they both knew it.

"Not if Shepard has her way." He did not have time to remember Shepard's explosion of grief, the sudden unshackling of all those things she couldn't keep in check.

"Shepard has been talked over enough for one day," Tali said quietly, not in correction but merely as though giving advice, "she doesn't need it from us." Joker got the distinct impression that Tali swallowed hard, and heard the faint sounds of a sniffle from within her helmet's protective opacity.

It took Joker a moment to unravel this statement. It was true that Shepard and her momentary lapse into unreason was the main topic of discussion—most people accepted that the blow was devastating, though one or two wondered if the Commander hadn't finally cracked. Shepard didn't need anyone analyzing her, or trying to figure her out—even if she would never know about it herself.

It was a courtesy she would never be able to appreciate, and not one he would have thought of himself—though his mental comments today had run the gamut of 'give Shepard a break'. She would never ask for one, but he could do it.

He nodded his agreement once.

Tali withdrew her hand after a few moments, clasping them before her in an attitude of deep contemplation. "This could get much worse, couldn't it? The losses, I mean."

"Yeah." He didn't like saying it, didn't like thinking about it, but when confronted with the ugly fact, he couldn't do anything more than acknowledge it.

Tali nodded, suspicions confirmed. There was, again, nothing to be said.

But it was good, in its own way to sit and brood with this sort of quiet company. He wouldn't have expected it to be so, but it undeniably was.


	209. Precious

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard sat hunched as uncomfortably as possible in the driver's seat of the Mako. She _needed_ the feeling of enclosed space, of small space, to serve as a buffer against the outside world, which had gone so horribly wrong. Her body screamed to cry, to weep and vent the pain, but at the same time no tears came. Many times before, Shepard had thought herself as wrung of moisture as a stone, but she had never fully appreciated what that _meant_, until now.

_Tap tap_.

Jumping, and crunching her innards in the process because of her odd position, she found Alenko peering in through the window. She nodded, and he opened the door. "You mind?" he asked, indicating the other seat.

"Go ahead." Shepard responded, her voice thin and frail.

Liara was right, Alenko thought, hoisting himself into the seat, and pulling the door closed—the garage crew was all upstairs in the mess hall. Shepard didn't look hurt, or shocked. She looked broken, shattered, held together with so much tape, but the lines and breaks remained wholly visible. She could reflect the world in a million tiny mosaic pieces…but was still broken.

All he wanted to do was throw the Book of Rules out the window, to ignore the rank tags on their shoulders, and forget about not muddying the chain of command. That last one was a losing battle and he knew it. Seeing her so upset made him want to do something, to comfort her if he could. Even if that comfort was as simple, as feeble as wrapping his arms around her, until she stopped the silent scream that seemed to fill the Mako's cab.

His eyes fell on the datapad, laying between them, and he realized what she must still be trying to do: draft the letter to the Williams family, explaining why their daughter, their sister, wasn't coming home. "Shepard, I…" he stopped, unsure of what to say.

Shepard shook her head, which suddenly felt almost too heavy for her neck to hold up. "Don't. It's not your fault. There's…" she gave a hiccup, or perhaps a stifled sob, "there's nothing you can do. I can't change it. And I wouldn't." Philosophically, she knew she had made the right call.

But damn it, it hurt so much, losing a friend like Ash.

"Jalissa," Alenko slipped his hand around Shepard's. Perhaps she had a point: there was nothing to _say. _Words did not seem to assuage pain. Of all of them, Shepard looked like the one most likely to bleed to death from them, as though every word meant to comfort or remove blame just cut her deeper.

Shepard shook her head slowly, until the pressure on her hand became a pull, a gentle pull that did not stop until she turned to look at Alenko. His warm, brown eyes were fixed upon her face, his expression holding pain similar to that which was tearing her apart, but no accusation, nothing but quiet commiseration, and a gentleness Shepard had never known what to think of. The fragments of her mind filled with the accumulated years of survivor's guilt hissed with venom she did not deserve such a thing as gentleness, or comfort.

"Come here."

Shepard shook her head. "Kaidan…" She swallowed hard.

"It's all right. Come here." Alenko continued pulling on Shepard's hand until finally, she inched towards him. The design of the Mako made sitting side by side next to impossible, so he simply dragged her to sit crosswise on his lap, tucking her head between his jaw and shoulder, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Shepard shook, as though dying with cold, part of her mind screaming that she should leave. _Run_. _Right now_. Because she was cursed. Because everyone who got close to her inevitably ended up _dead_. And she did not want that for Alenko. For Kaidan.

A greater part of her mind shoved this notion away, desperate for some semblance of human contact, to let someone else balm the wounds. Hesitantly, she slipped her arms around his torso. Even in grief, or perhaps because of it, she still had the strength for a tight grip.

Alenko had never wondered about wearing a corset any more than he had ever thought about getting hit by a truck. Now, thanks to Shepard, he knew what both those things felt like. But at least she seemed content to stay where she was, and not to force herself to deal with this on her own.

Shepard was not a person you could think of in terms of someone to protect. She usually did a good job of that herself. Yet, the thought that at this moment she was _his_ to protect, that he was—according to Liara—the one she wanted to find her, was more than he could have imagined at the outset.

And that, like Shepard herself, was precious to him.

Shepard did not know how long she fought the sea of grief and horror filling her mind, anchored by Alenko's warm bulk. But she appreciated every second she did not find herself slipping beneath the cold waves, every moment those dark waters did not flood her mouth and nostrils, seeking to snuff out her life, as Williams' had been snuffed. Numbness of mind and soul began to grow and spread, turning the waters to ice.

But beneath that chill, part of her began logically and systematically taking stock of her surroundings. That frustrating, busy little secretary part of her, the one unconcerned with emotional distress except as a footnote.

It was that part of her that noticed what it was to feel sheltered in someone's arms. To know that, if only for those few moments, someone else was stronger than she was, and willing to let her lean awhile upon that strength. It was good to sit for a time and rest, feel safe and secure for the first time in years.


	210. Politics

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The Council met in a small chamber, where a Spectre could deliver a briefing without half the galaxy watching. The opulence of it was lost on Shepard, who had never been less aware of her surroundings, as she stood with Ambassador Udina before the Council. The Councilors showed proper gravity, as they sat behind their table, but gave away nothing of their thoughts.

Even Udina's presence, for once, meant next to nothing. She did not care about him, she only wanted to hear the plan of action—though, the cynical part of her wondered if 'action' was even in the Council's vocabulary.

"If Saren is foolish enough to attack the Citadel, as you believe, we shall be ready for him," the asari counselor declared reassuringly.

Her turian counterpart nodded his agreement. "Patrols are already _en route_ to every mass relay linking Citadel Space with the Terminus Systems."

Despite the pain she felt, despite her self-loathing and the promise she made herself not to let her emotions override her, Shepard's temper reared its head. "A _roadblock?_"

"Shepard," Udina mumbled warningly.

Shepard ignored him. It was unbelievable…after the talks, the trouble, the legwork it took to find out where Saren was going to be…they wanted to set up a _roadblock_? In deep space? "You're going to set up a…roadblock?" Her voice broke in disbelief, in utter astonishment at the stupidity of the people running the galaxy. "A road…" it was inconceivable, "you think that's going to…" the glances the salarian and turian councilors exchanged indicated clearly they felt Shepard was not only inept, but also quite irrational.

She would like to see how rational _they_ were, when a good friend sacrificed herself—in cold blood—to ensure a mission's success. When the whole galaxy was scowling at _them,_ and acting like the traditional armchair commandos, or those officers whoe stayed in the rear with the gear.

Shepard's temper, so close to the surface from stress and inner turmoil, splintered the restraints she kept on it. "You _cannot stop Saren Arterius with a roadblock!_" Shepard roared, liked a wounded creature. She slammed a fist down on the table, causing the water glasses there to rattle and shake.

"Shepard," Udina growled, trying to look as though he had Shepard's leash firmly in hand, but failing.

"Councilor," she implored to the asari whom, of the three, had always taken the most moderate approach, "I am asking you to pay attention to the fact that whether he's got Spectre status or not, he's _still one of the best_! You can't stop a guy like that with a _roadblock_! It doesn't work when cops do it, it's not going to work now!" Shepard found herself actually shaking, so violently one would have to be at a great distance or blind to miss it.

"The only way to Ilos, Commander, is via the Mu relay. If we send in a fleet, the only possible outcome is all-out war with the Terminus Systems."

Shepard refrained from saying 'bring it on, what's a few more enemies on our list?' with great difficulty.

"This is a time for discretion, Shepard," Udina announced, too loud to be a true aside to Shepard.

Shepard gritted her teeth, finding the urge to belt Udina in the mouth growing stronger by the second. Between her temples, a nasty sort of tension began to hum, coiling her gray matter into an agitated knot.

"And while your cavalier tactics may have served you in the traverse, they won't cut the…" the salarian shook his head, abandoning the humanism.

"Mustard." Shepard grunted, but no one heard her. Her anger at this newest act of stupidity was by no means abated by Udina's next comment.

"Saren's greatest weapon is secrecy—without that…"

"We are back to the same argument we had before!" Shepard hissed at him. "He's past the need for secrecy! Councilors," Shepard appealed, desperation at the immobility of the stone wall against which she was pounding her fists welling up, "Saren is a major threat, but the true threat is _Sovereign._ We _cannot_ let them get any further in their plans, or the whole galaxy will suffer for it…right up until the Reapers finish us off. 'I'm sorry, we were wrong' won't do any good by then!"

The councilors looked appalled, grim, or impatient, as Udina sputtered softly at Shepard's blatant sarcasm. "And yet only _you_ have seen these so-called Reapers," the asari responded cuttingly, "and even then, only in visions."

"Visions backed and authenticated by a Prothean specialist."

"We will not invade the Terminus Systems because of a _dream_." The asari stood up.

"Then don't—the engines on the _Normandy_ are still hot. We can be there in…"

"We have this under control, Shepard…"

The turian councilor stepped in, as color suffused Shepard's face, clashing spectacularly with her overly bright eyes. "Councilor, I get the distinct impression Commander Shepard is not going to let this go."

"There are serious political ramifications, Shepard…"

"Screw the ramifications, this is insane!"

"So is your behavior," Udina lowered his voice. "Humanity has made great strides, thanks to you, but you are rapidly becoming more trouble than you're worth."

All the color drained from Shepard's face. She always knew Udina was a slug, but this new low somehow managed to surprise her.

"It's just politics Commander," Udina ended, taking advantage of Shepard's silence, "you've done your job, now let me do mine."

"You're not listening." Shepard murmured, neither demure nor defeated. "None of you are." A headache the likes of which she had never dealt with before began brewing behind her eyes. She could finally sympathize with Alenko's migraines—this throbbing, pulsing pain seemed to rock the foundations of her very being.

Before Udina could tell Shepard she should leave, that this matter was no longer any of her concern Shepard gave all assembled a scathing look, shook her head, and swept out of the Council's chambers.

Udina might think this was over, Shepard mentally snarled, but he was painfully mistaken.


	211. Abandoned

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard was ready to argue some more, but Adm. Hackett's stern expression stopped her. She heaved a heavy sigh and saluted—though it lacked conviction. "Yes sir, I understand. Shepard out." She logged off the comm. channel and bit her lip, crossing her arms across her torso, since no one could see her.

She had never felt so alone in her entire life. Always before there had been purpose, motivation, something to act as a safety net. Plans to get into the Alliance. Plans to join the N program. The Alliance had always been somewhere in the periphery, even after she was made a Spectre. She had made the Alliance her life. One of the very few things that remained constant. She was used to the Council ignoring her for the most part. But for the Alliance to abandon her like this…

She felt lost. Adrift. She had sometimes thought what she was asked to do was beyond her scope, but she did it anyway. Now, she truly felt like one woman standing in Atlas' position. She was not strong enough, she was only one person.

The knowledge and painful driving-home of it exacerbated the rawness left in the wake of Williams' death. It was ironic. She had abandoned Williams on Virmire only to have the Alliance abandon her now. She wanted to give in to the weakness that battered at her resolve, but succeeded in remaining composed, in control of the crashing ship she called her life, or its sister ship Galactic Safety.

At least the _Normandy_ was mostly empty. Once she got word she had several hours to wait before Hackett could get to her, she had given those hours to the crew to get off the Normandy and stretch their legs. She was glad she had, now. Even more glad than she had been when she discovered Hackett had cut a few appointments to make time for her request for his help.

The CIC was quiet, illuminated by the galaxy map. She plodded down the stairs, into the equally empty mess deck, and to her office where she tried to work, but failed. She got up from her chair, slammed it under her desk, and strode over to the small gear lockers near the medbay. Williams' things were moved from the garage into one of these little coffin-like effects containers, pending return to her next of kin.

Shepard crouched, looking at the blank metal. Jenkins' belongings reposed in the locker to the left, at one point. Williams' in the far left. Whose things would fill the locker to the right? Was it a moot point, with no one working to stop the Reapers? Should they all pack up and go home, spend the last weeks or months with their families?

Stupid. She thought savagely, though not sure if she meant herself, the Council, the Alliance, or just everyone in the whole fraking galaxy. The locker stared at her, accusatory, trying to make her doubt her own logic, to add another burden to her conscience.

_Bam_. She knocked her fist into the rightmost locker, the one she could almost see her own things filling. She shook her aching knuckles, tears welling in her eyes in response to the pain. It offered no clarity, no distraction. In fact, the ache in her hand seemed to emphasize her position.

She could not sit around and do nothing. There had to be something…_anything_. Udina wasn't Alliance, how did he get the clout to ground an Alliance ship? She was a Spectre, _half_ a Spectre. Didn't that count for _something_? She had yet to throw her weight around in that capacity. She flopped onto the ground, massaging her knuckles as she drew up her knees, leaning against the rightmost locker.

"I really need your brainpan right now, Ash," she murmured, some of Williams' last words echoing in her ears.

_I'll be watching out for you_. Well, if ever she needed someone watching out for her, now would be it. Williams made two people she expected to be tuned in on her life, watching it like some kind of soap opera—Williams and O'Conner.

O'Conner would be flinging popcorn at the screen at this point, shouting for her to cancel the pity party and get back to work. The thought almost made Shepard smile, except that it reminded her how she seemed to burn through friends. It really was easier just being alone.

Shepard rested her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped, forehead resting against them. Hackett couldn't, wouldn't, do anything with the Fleet until he had a reason, an iron-clad reason to put them on alert. So how could she put him on alert? Not through diplomacy…

"Shepard?" Shepard jumped as Alenko appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Are you all right?" She shrugged, wondering that he would show up just when she had accepted now was a good time to be by herself. "I take it the meeting didn't go well?" She shook her head. "There's got to be a way to appeal. We're under Alliance jurisdiction, after all."

Shepard sighed. "Official channels are closed, Alenko. I appealed to Hackett this afternoon. He was quite clear: he won't mobilize the Fleet without a reason. Looks like we're on our own."

Alenko snorted, crossing his arms. "We've been on our own since this whole thing started. So," he leaned against the medbay wall, "where do you think the best view will be when the Reapers roll through?"

Shepard's turn to snort, but Alenko's sarcasm, in no way intended to be hurtful, had the same effect as sparks on kindling. "We're out of the game for now. Until I find a plan."

"Well, you know you can count on the crew. All of it."

A faint smile crossed Shepard's features at the unexpected assertion that she was not one woman fighting an insurmountable threat. They were a _crew_ on a single vessel fighting an insurmountable threat.

The odds were still bad…but somewhat better.


	212. Fail

Beta-read by Saberlin.

This takes place _just_ after Shepard asks Alenko if it would kill him to say 'it's okay; you'll figure it out', and he tells her what she wants/needs to hear.

-J-

Shepard, still slumped against the lockers, smiled wearily up at Alenko. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" Even if he was simply telling her what she wanted to hear, it meant something. She wasn't the sort to whine about how hard things were, but she was rapidly running out of…what? Straws? Hope? Reasons to keep going? Alenko's smile warmed that cold part of her core in a way she was unaccustomed to.

"I guess not. I'm not too worried. I never met anyone with so many last minute bright ideas." And it was true. If Alenko had a credit for every time Shepard pulled something out last minute, he would be rich.

"Well…there _is_ one thing I haven't tried," she sighed, not particularly thrilled with the prospect. She wasn't even sure it would work. It meant throwing her Spectre status around, defying her Oath of Service, and kicking a lot of people's butts, simply for being in her way. No, she really didn't want to do it.

Alenko reached down to offer Shepard a hand up, when he saw her move to push herself to her feet.

Shepard took his hand, pushing off the ground and using Alenko as a counterweight.

What she hadn't expected was the force of his pull as he helped her up. She stumbled, knocking into him before she got her feet under her.

Alenko froze. His first reaction when Shepard unbalanced was to grab her so she didn't fall, in this case by her elbow, his other hand on her waist.

Shepard glanced up..._this _was an unseen turn of events...not that she was displeased, but it could look pretty bad… The 'noise' of the Cipher quieted in the frozen moment that followed. The hand holding her elbow shifted, becoming less to keep her balanced and more of a reassurance.

She'd never been so close to kissing anyone before, not even in that moment of impulse on the Citadel. Slowly, in response to his tender expression, she tilted her head slightly to receive the kiss he so obviously wanted to give her.

Her breath shook. She knew Alenko could feel the hitch, just as she could feel his breath on her own lips. So close…her entire body seemed to tingle and contract upon itself, but rather than a preface to run away, she took a single half step closer, letting herself lean into him. Strange how, only now, she should find herself so keenly aware of the fact that they were not independent automata, but living, breathing humans, with beating hearts.

She had had friends before, people she needed around her, people she could trust, rely on. People she needed as fixtures in her world. But she had never come across anyone she needed like she needed breath itself. Never. It frightened her, in a way not even the Reapers did—when she allowed herself to think about them. The Reapers required a sort of tunnel vision, remaining out of view until she had to deal with them.

And yet, with all her experiences with _fear_, this was different. The instincts honed by her decade plus of service screamed at her to push away, to remind him that she was his CO, and he was a Staff Lieutenant, and they were on the same posting. That this could kill both their careers in an ignominious crash and burn.

It was an older, deeper-rooted instinct that stilledb learned instinct, and made her want to cling to him like white lint on black clothes.

She could feel his breath against her tingling lips when…

"Sorry to interrupt Commander." Joker's voice cracked across the comm system.

Alenko winced.

Color suffused Shepard's face. Of all the times to get busted. What had she been _thinking_? She hadn't, she knew. For one glorious moment, she had put rational thought on hold.

"I'm going to shoot the pilot." she mumbled, before she stepped back. She _knew_ she ought to thank him for breaking up a potentially awkward situation...but couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Don't do that, we need him to get out of here." Though Alenko found himself looking anywhere but at Shepard, feeling more foiled than frustrated.

Shepard cleared her throat, her posture returning to the straight military-preciseness she usually adopted when actively using her rank.

"Yes? What is it Joker?" She sounded more neutral than she felt, looking over at the lockers, rather than at Alenko. She was sure the blush would only get worse if she made eye contact.

Despite Alenko's similar litany of 'what were you thinking? Were you thinking at all?'(the answer was no) he couldn't help but notice Shepard's blush. It was one of the very few 'cute' things he'd ever seen her do. He'd seen her kick in doors and yell 'down on the floor, you sons of bitches!'—not cute, though it _was_ interesting. Blast geth with CPU-exploding hacks—not cute, but highly amusing. Seen her splatter 'zombies' with a shotgun—disgusting, but oddly satisfying.

"I just got a message from the Captain. He wants you to come down to Flux." Joker said innocently enough. He _had_ eavesdropped on the 'conversation'. He'd not expected _this_, though. Personally, Joker couldn't see how she was going to pull any rabbits to save the galaxy without breaking the rules, and if she had to start…

...this thing with Alenko was as good a way as any. As long as none of _their_ superior officers found out (and no one was finding out from _him)_. Alenko was a friend and Shepard…was, well, Shepard. Joker shook his head. Call it Spectre business; no one would ask awkward questions.

"All right—I'll be there shortly," Shepard answered, biting her lip. Surely he wouldn't…this couldn't be about Williams. This couldn't be about Virmire…this _couldn't_, mustn't be the Captain getting plastered and wanting company.

"Aye-aye." The comm. link severed with a click.

"Let's not keep the Captain waiting." With that, Shepard vanished to grab her guns before heading to the airlock.


	213. Kiss

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Perhaps it was just the effects moment interrupted by Joker still wearing off, but Shepard and Alenko stood a little closer in the elevator than they normally would have. A sense of discomfort caused by the shattered moment filled the space around them, causing them both to shift restlessly.

"Shepard, I…" Alenko cut the sentence off. All the times when he said too much, or more than he wanted to, and now—just when that would have been useful—his grasp of the use of language malfunctioned.

Shepard found herself distracted by the close proximity. Without fully extending his arm, he could have wrapped it around her shoulders. Part of her wanted to run, to brutally sever herself from something that the loss of which would cause her pain.

She knew she couldn't do it. It would be like tearing off a finger, or a limb.

Shepard's heart was thudding too fast in her chest, her stomach twisting. It was as though someone had finally turned the 'noise' of the Cipher down to almost mute. The noise of her own thoughts was so much louder. She tried to look him in the eye, but found herself unable to do it, her gaze slipping down to lip level instead.

What, wondered the part of her that had wanted him to kiss her, would it be like to have those pressed against her own? She'd read sappy, fluffy, over-narrated scenes about it as a teenager, but lacked serious empirical data…

…that was what the logical justifications department said, nerdish to the very core.

A louder part screamed that _this was wrong_. She couldn't just go around _snogging_ someone…even him…_especially _him…not after Williams…after Ash…she was not sure how much more guilt she could safely carry…or if she had finally reached her limit.

The lift jittered as it began to move. Where was courage when there was no real danger? Shepard could—and did—curse herself for cowardice, stupidity, and imprudence. She glanced over, found Alenko chewing the inside of his lip.

"Wishing you'd finished what you'd started?"

The tone of her voice, like the words it uttered, surprised her. She was not entirely sure if she was asking him a question, or sneering at herself. Startled, Shepard unconsciously crossed her arms before her diaphragm, as if protecting herself from a blow.

The boldness of the remark startled Alenko, too, but as speaking had helped 'unstick' Shepard's mind, hearing the words helped unstick his own.

Hesitantly, Alenko's took her elbow on one hand, causing Shepard to look up at him. There was unusual color in her face again, a dull pink unlike the blush he'd seen earlier. An odd mix of courage and wariness, of hope and vulnerability expressed itself in subtle tensions around her mouth and eyes.

Shepard saw some of her own uncertainty, her own reservations reflected back at her…but also some of the unvoiced thoughts.

When in doubt, be honest, Alenko decided. "Yeah…"

She freed one hand from gripping her elbow, two fingers coming to rest in the hollow between his collarbones, hesitant, her other hand still pressed flat against her stomach as though she did not trust it not to do something…wrong.

What was it about Shepard that made the simplest gestures, the most fleeting touches seem a thousand dimensions deep? Or was it just the unguarded expression on her face? There was no sign of the titan, the juggernaut, the icon people usually thought of when they heard the name Shepard.

…there was just…Jalissa…

"Then by all means…carry on…" her words hung suspended, like recruits in their first zeegee environment. And, like those same recruits, uncertain.

Alenko's hand slid up Shepard's arm to cup her shoulder, warm and solid beneath the blue standard-issue shirt. His other hand moved unthinkingly for hers, their fingers lacing and twisting together, relaying tiny sensory details, things not previously noticed in moments of fleeting physical contact.

Like the scarred ridge on one of Shepard's fingers…a ridge repeated on the others. Something, the hood of a vehicle, perhaps, had dropped onto that hand at one time.

Totally disassociated with the cataloging of minutia, Alenko leaned over and pressed his lips against Shepard's almost shyly. He let them linger there, both of them taking in the first, chaste, sensation of flesh on flesh.

After a second or two, in which they both decided it was good, all right, and not going to cause either of them to be struck by vengeful lighting, the kiss melted into something more personal, almost curious.

Curious, in the way that Shepard stepped the last half-step forward, bringing her close enough that each could imagine they felt the warmth radiating from the other, so that every shift of weight, every subtle change in posture triggered some other fleeting contact.

Curious, in the way that his fingers slipped gently down her cheek, to curl over her other shoulder, his thumb lingering, as her fingers had, in the hollow between collarbones. She was smaller than he expected, strangely enough, as though her force of personality amplified her stature.

When her fingers slid free of his, to run up his arm to curl around his neck, he let his hand drop to rest against her waist. A touch of familiarity, but neither restraining, nor too personal, and one Shepard approved, though she had to work not to flinch. She was not used to being touched with such familiarity…but she could _get_ used to it.

They pulled apart, warm, somewhat shaky breath dancing across each other's lips.

As if they had memorized the amount of time it took from the top of the elevator to the point at which those milling around C-Sec could see into it, Shepard and Alenko broke apart, hesitating a moment to take in the feel of someone else's living breath on rarely-touched lips before stepping back, and sliding away from comfortable resting places to return to their owners' sides.

They were, after all, in uniform. They had to be marines.


	214. Annoyance

Beta-read by Saberlin.

En route to Flux to meet the Captain...

-J-

"Commander? Commander Shepard!"

Alenko groaned inwardly. He knew that voice, and knew that within moments, Shepard's most avid fanboy on the Citadel, Conrad Verner, was going to start harassing her. It was an annoyance at the very least, and unhealthy at most. Shepard knew her duty as a 'live hero', that she had certain expectations to fulfill—for the Alliance's sake. She never touted recruiting, however, but she smiled, gave the pep talks, whatever the situation and duty called for.

Perhaps it was stress, perhaps it was just grief, but Verner had finally picked the wrong day to be an annoyance. Whatever it was, Shepard _reacted_, purely on instinct, in the way drilled into her by years of training and necessity. She moved without conscious thought, so fast an onlooker would have thought she had been waiting to be accosted.

Alenko reacted too slowly, though part of him did not regret it. Pain was a good teacher, sometimes. Shepard might feel bad, but at least she got her point across: _leave me alone already_.

The instant Verner's hand came down on Shepard's shoulder, to get her attention, Shepard stiffened, planted her feet, pivoted at the waist, and slammed her elbow squarely into his face. The force of the pivot added additional momentum to the attack.

Blood exploded from the civilian's nose as he reeled from the blow. Still simply _reacting_, unable to make the shift from instinct to rational thought, Shepard turned and pushed him back, sending him staggering.

Verner tripped, hitting the floor with bone-jarring force and a muffled 'oof'. Without his hands guarding his nose, blood spewed and spattered onto his dark shirt.

Panting, her hands shaking slightly, Shepard tensed, finally able to think instead of act. It took real will to resist the impulse to follow her training and _neutralize the threat_. There _was_ no threat, just an overenthusiastic fan who made her rather uncomfortable. "Oh _no_…" She covered her mouth, her eyes fixed upon the choking, whimpering civilian. "I just..." Without thinking she looked appealing up at Alenko. "I didn't…"

Had she not once chewed Garrus out for not thinking? For possibly damaging a civilian? It suddenly smacked of hypocrisy, even though many others would argue the situations were entirely different. Incomparable.

"Better not," Alenko caught her shoulder, and then shuffled her around, putting himself between her and Verner. "I'll do it." This would give him intense personal and professional satisfaction.

She nodded. Maybe it _would_ be better to let the person who had not broken Verner's nose talk to him. She hoped it was not broken, and not because she was worried about him pressing charges.

Alenko would have laid money—a large sum, even—on a bet that Verner, in his desperation to be just like Shepard, to learn from the best, wanted her to get him into the Spectres. He did not doubt she would put the kibosh on this, but still...

Verner had to know, somewhere in that empty head, that he was not Spectre material, he was not N-operative material. He might be soldier material, but Spectres were rare, special, no matter what species they belonged to.

And this thought was directed at Shepard from a purely professional standpoint.

Frankly, Alenko admired Shepard's patience dealing with the fanboy, but enough was finally enough. You _never_ just grabbed marine like that.

_Ever_.

Pulling a tube of medigel from a trouser pocket, Alenko crouched, popped it, and handed it to Verner. "Put it up your nose—breathe through your mouth. There you go." Leaning forward slightly as Verner obeyed, Alenko continued in a undertone Shepard would not hear. "You don't _ever_ grab a marine by the shoulder like that. _Particularly_ when she's having a bad couple of days. You're lucky she just broke your nose. So take my very friendly advice, and _leave her alone_."

He was better proof against the look of disillusionment filling Verner's eyes than Shepard. He could live with kicking this particular puppy. Other people were smart enough not to sneak up and grab a marine, Verner had no excuse.

"Is he okay?" Shepard asked, her expression concerned. Honestly, part of her applauded this hopeful end to the fanboy's annoying fixation, but most of her was surprised she had reacted so violently. Or maybe it was not so surprising. She was simply shocked. She usually exercised such care not to _react, not to give way to unthinking action,_ while in a place with a strong civilian presence.

_Act, don't _re_act. _That was N-training 101.

"Answer her, Conrad," Alenko murmured, his eyes fixed disapprovingly on Verner, as he took back the empty medigel tube from Verner's lax fingers.

"Yeah…fine Commander…." Verner slurred, all thoughts of getting onto Shepard's team, of becoming her protégé vanishing, crumbling into dust and shards of glass at his feet. It was inconceivable to him that his hero could be so cruel.

"I'm really sorry…" Shepard offered lamely, knowing 'I'm sorry' would not cut it. 'I'm sorry' did not set broken bones, or make aches stop. Not physical ones, anyway.

Verner did not need Alenko to prompt him to get lost. Jumping to his feet, nose plugged with medigel, Verner waved her back. "I'm fine…sorry to bother you!" His words smacked of hostility, disappointment, and the muffled quality of a nose not working right. He scampered off, more than likely heading for Dr. Michel's clinic.

Both marines spared a thought to wonder how often Verner found it necessary to visit the medclinic.

Shepard deflated, rubbing her elbow as though it hurt. "I can't believe I just _did_ that…"

Alenko was going to say 'it's okay', but her expression indicated that whatever they might both feel about Verner, it was _not_ okay for a marine to elbow a civilian in the nose. Startled or not. "Just let it go, Shepard." Alenko advised gently. "You're not perfect, so don't try." The warm hand on her shoulder, guiding her towards Flux, never felt as reassuring as it did now.


	215. No One Noticed

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

No one noticed the salarian standing quietly in a gallery overlooking the Council Chambers as Commander Shepard, Council Spectre, shared her findings, was told she was crazy, got thrown under the CRT car, and—if he was any judge of human expressions—seriously debated whether to pick this particular point in time as good one for a complete breakdown of psychological stability.

Which would mean bullets flying everywhere. Thankfully, she restrained herself, striding off white-faced with her lieutenant in tow. She caused quite a scene, as Spectres were wont to do. But scene or not, she was all alone. He could not verify her assertions about the Reapers, but he knew there was more to that facility on Virmire than simply breeding krogan.

Why else would so many have been captured, instead of simply killed?

No one noticed the salarian slip unobtrusively out of the gallery.

No one noticed him take a call some hours later.

And no one noticed one of his team members keeping an eye on Anderson.

Because Capt. Kirrahe knew if one person was going to enable Shepard to avenge her fallen comrade, it would be the Captain. And the Commander was not going to simply sit down when told, not when she believed the sky was falling.

-J-

No one noticed the salarian standing almost invisible amongst the quasar machines at Flux, watching the human captain sitting and debating with his untouched beer. The beer had to be quite warm by now, because the captain showed no signs of actually wanting to drink it.

By now it was probably unpalatable.

Finally, the captain made the call, and the ingeniously placed device on the underside of the table relayed his words straight to the salarian's audio unit.

_Joker. Find Commander Shepard—tell her to meet me at Flux. It's important_.

No one noticed the salarian withdraw from the overlook, to stand near the wall, almost invisible.

No one noticed the salarian, speaking the language of his people softly.

_Captain? The Spectre's captain has requested her presence. He says it is urgent. I will keep you informed._

-J-

No one noticed the salarian in the hustle and bustle of C-Sec; it was hard to pick out individuals, if one did not know for whom to look. He waited, nearly camouflaged by the decorative bank holding the soil for the trees which lent a touch of naturalness to the blue-lit hub of law enforcement.

Even Shepard, followed by her ever-present lieutenant, did not notice the salarian watching unobtrusively. She was angry. One could tell just by looking at her; more than that, she was desperate.

He would not have called the Virmire mission a success, personally—but he remained willing to defer to the Captain on that point. The facility was gone. Its secrets were gone. But so was Saren, and not in a permanent fashion. If there was one person who _could_ get to Saren, who could wreak the havoc necessary to pay for all those lives lost…

It was the human commander.

He did not have to wait very long. Shepard strode through C-Sec not half an hour later, looking almost murderous.

_Captain? She's on her way up to the docking bay._

No one noticed Commander Rentola slip out of the C-Sec Academy.

-J-

No one noticed the salarians, because they were not in a group. No one noticed who they were talking to, because there was no law against one species pausing to chat amicably with another. No one knew the names, no one knew the faces, and no one knew what was happening.

It was business as usual for the remains of the Third Infiltration Unit, STG.

The only real difference now was that they operated on the Citadel, instead of in some far-flung region of the galaxy. The only other new variable was that they were working without the Council's blessing, instead of under direct orders.

But they were the best, and had a bone to pick on behalf of lost friends, lost brothers. No one would know of their involvement. No one would know what they were enabling until it was too late.

No one would know, because that was how _they_ conducted business.

-J-

_Everyone_ noticed the procession of hanar gliding into the C-Sec Academy. The jellyfish-like entities gave the impression of many luminous clouds gliding about, rendered lavender in the blue lights.

Everyone noticed them glide to a stop, blocking several elevators before launching into harmonious praises of the Enkindlers, a task from which they refused to be dislodged. After all, had not the honorable C-Sec officers stated that today was, in fact, a day when such words of enlightenment might be spoken? And that the most suitable place for such a display was, in fact, in this foyer, where so many beings traversed? And was this not a place, if any existed, where those within so desperately needed enlightenment?

C-Sec gazed in horrified fascination at the army of hanar, knowing full well how stubborn the blasted jellies could be when it came to matters of religion. But here they were, in the C-Sec academy in full spate.

Without permits.

When Executor Pallin came tearing down moments later, he simply gaped as the chorus of hanar continued, blissfully unaware that they were blocking all progress.

All progress except for that of Shepard herself, who never saw the hanar arrive. By that time she was already on the bridge, waiting for Udina's lockdown to lift.

-J-

No one noticed the salarians sitting in a dingy bar as news crews added to C-Sec's woes.

Kirrahe ordered another round for the team as the screen blazed about the unprecedented havoc. Even Pallin turned up to try and control he crisis, which made Kirrahe smile. As long as Pallin was not in his office, Ambassador Udina could not get hold of him.

And as long as the confusion lasted, no one would have time to think about Shepard's captain, either. It was good, sometimes, to fall through the cracks.


	216. Danger Ahead

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Capt. Anderson sat in his cell, waiting. Every second found him expecting hell to blow up on the Citadel.

The door at the end of the corridor hissed, and a blonde C-Sec agent, one whom Anderson had noticed before now, but knew only by face, shuffled in. He gave the corridor a look, then stepped up to the barrier. "You're Shepard's commanding officer, aren't you, sir?"

"I was," Anderson responded, his brows crinkling.

"Is she crazy? Or is there really a problem?" Eddie Lang had to know. All of C-sec was buzzing, either assuming the woman had finally cracked, or chewing their fingernails waiting for an unexpected attack.

"She's not crazy. There _is_ a problem."

Eddie bit his lip. "Big?"

"Spectre big." Anderson got to his feet.

"What do I do?" Lang's eyes searched the competent visage of the aging captain.

"Brace for a battle. Synthetics. Whoever you can convince—get them ready." Anderson shook his head. "That's all you _can_ do."

Lang swallowed. He knew this could mean his head. "She…she sent you a message." The barrier dropped, and Lang held out an antiquated holographic recorder. They'd stopped using these decades ago—it was definitely Shepard technology. Which meant she'd foreseen an event that might separate her—or him—from usual communications. "Dropped it off with me just before…you know. Whoosh." He mimed something zooming through the air with his free hand. "First chance I had to pass it along—we've been busy," he grimaced, but did not elaborate.

Anderson took it, and Lang restored the barrier. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Captain." And with that he scuttled off.

Anderson retreated, sitting so as to screen the recorder. It took him a moment to find the on/off switch, but he found it.

The image fizzled before resolving itself into Shepard. She had filmed herself sitting down, and she looked pensive. "_These days, dates don't mean a whole lot._ _They're just blips on a calendar, a way for people to remember major events, and pick apart the decisions we the doers made. We just had Ash's memorial service…I don't think it's fully set in yet. I keep heading down the garage to tell her something…but she's not there. And I don't know what to say. _

"_If you're getting this, it means the Council sold us out. She said they would, eventually, and she was right. I'm recording this now, just in case. I hope I get the opportunity to erase it…or re-record it...or record something I can hope the _next _species of space-faring sentients can find._

"_Almost everyone on this ship has written, or is writing letters home. If there's anyone left alive to read them…I've set up communications to auto-execute a transfer if one of several scenarios occurs. They'll go to your communications node. Please…would you make sure the letters get where they need to go? Rest assured, I will make every effort to send your crew back to you safely…but it'll be a load off my mind." _

Shepard sighed, slouching over to chew on a thumbnail, her elbows still resting on the arms of the chair. She sounded so very, very old in that moment. So far into advanced old age it made _him_ feel twenty again.

"_This is…also my letter home. I don't have someone to write to, but I can't seem to bear the thought of not leaving some record of myself. Some little smudge in the clay of the universe." _The hologram did not show the tears Anderson could hear in her voice. "_I wanted to thank you. Especially for supporting me like you have—I know it's cost you a great deal, one way and another, I only hope that our efforts will vindicate you in the near future. _

"_I was…dubious…when I was pulled from the El Alamein. I didn't want to change postings, I didn't know what I was getting into. What I got into were some of the best months of my life. I don't know if anyone else here feels the same way, but this ship had a unique…ambiance._

"_This is probably where Mindoir comes into the picture, but you know I hate talking about it. Thinking about it. I just want to say that I didn't realize how much about it I hadn't dealt with…and how much I have dealt with since I set foot on your ship. It's been a blessing the likes of which I can't even describe. Thank you for that. _

The hologram cut off, then began playing again. This time, it showed Shepard standing up, her posture radiating intensity. "_I had to cut the end of the original message to make sure you stayed in the know._ _This is more important than the sentimental bullshit you've endured up until this point—but I felt there was no better way to mask the important stuff than with maudlin stuff._

"_I think I can stop Saren, the problem is _Sovereign – _his ship. Chances are I've already told you, if I haven't…well. It's a Reaper. It's proof, and it's heading for Ilos. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, except that I already promised Wrex he could have Saren's head as a paperweight…if we see Saren before you do, I'll find you a souvenir. Sorry, but Wrex _did _call dibs, and he _was _pretty pissed off at the time._ _That's not important. I'm making plans already, in case something horrible happens._

"_Here's a secret, between you and me: in the base of this recorder is a copy of the files I copied on Virmire. I'm not a geneticist, so I don't know what's in there. There's too much at stake, and I get the feeling that we, the galaxy, are going to need all the help we can get._

"_I've got to go…" _she looked up, as if someone had addressed her. "…_bye_…" The recording cut abruptly.

Captain Anderson found the rewind toggle, and froze the image.

It did not sound as though Shepard expected to come back.


	217. Running Interference

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

If the situation were not so serious, Admiral Steven Hackett would have laughed at the image Ambassador Udina cut. Even with the FTL-transmission's color distorted image, he could tell the Ambassador had a spectacular bruise forming across his jaw.

Unfortunately, the situation was anything but funny. "She what?" He had heard perfectly well the first time, but wanted to hear it again in hopes something was wrong with his ears.

"Your marine _stole_ the _Normandy_! Aided and abetted by that crazy captain! When we agreed to put Shepard's name forward, I was led to believe you would be holding her leash!" Udina raged.

"Ambassador, it's hard to hold anyone's leash when _you_ request her home port relocated to suit _your_ convenience. It's also hard to police a Spectre, since _technically _she's not under my jurisdiction."

"She is still yours on paper!" Udina barked. "Find her! Bring her back."

"I'd certainly _try,_ if I knew where to _look._ The Traverse is—pardon the earthy phrase—a bigass place to lose something like the _Normandy_." Hackett's stomach jittered, even as he spoke calmly.

_'I can't just put the fleet on standby, Shepard, you know that. I'd need a real reason…'_

Well, she'd given him one, all right.

"We know where she's headed! That deluded maniac is heading for Ilos! Via the Mu relay!"

Hackett leaned back. "I thought the Citadel Fleet had a roadblock set up in that general area, to stop former agent Saren from accessing the relay." Of course, Hackett knew that sort of thing would not stop Saren's flagship, if Shepard was right about its capabilities. It would not even inconvenience Shepard_—_the _Normandy _would just tiptoe in and no one would be the wiser.

The sound of Udina's teeth grinding was not audible, and he aborted the gesture quickly. His injured jaw would simply not tolerate it.

"I will, of course, put the Alliance fleet on standby. If we get so much as a hint of where the Commander is…"

"I want her commission, Hackett!" Udina spat.

Hackett actually stood up, and leaned over the desk. "Unless they've changed the spelling of 'admiral,' you're in no position to make that sort of demand. I'm not even sure where you get off impounding the _Normandy_, because that ship and everyone on her belongs to _me_! _When_ we've apprehended Shepard, _I _and a court of military justice will decide what to do with her—_if_ the Council lets us get a hold of her."

Never mind they would probably revoke her Spectre status.

"Please remember, Ambassador, she's still a Spectre, and therefore a damn slippery person to discipline. We can't rake her over the coals because they insist she's theirs, and they can't rake her over the coals because we still have her on file as a member of the Alliance Marine corps!"

Hackett sat back down, anger pulsing with the blood in his head and behind his eyes. "We will make every effort to find out ship, and the woman who commandeered her…"

"And her crew is going along with this!"

"Her crew is likely laboring under the impression they are still under Commander Shepard's authority, and are acting in accordance with what are perceived as lawful orders," Hackett growled. "If you want us to catch the commander, fine—but don't think you know more about the topic than we do. We helped make her what she is. _You're_ lucky she's not heading into the Terminus Systems to start blowing up planets, ambassador."

Udina grit his teeth.

"Now, about Captain Anderson."

"He's in the brig down at C-Sec. Of course, Shepard's got all sorts of contacts there through that turian..." Udina balled his fists.

"I'll arrange for the Captain to be brought to Arcturus Station, where he belongs." Hackett's words did not brook any argument. "In the meantime, I have quite a bit to do, getting the fleet ready. Excuse me." Hackett hung up before Udina could start raging again, then leaned back in his chair.

He'd needed a reason to mobilize the fleet. He had not expected Shepard to steal her own boat, and head out on her own. He'd heard about her visions. He'd heard the veracity when she asserted they were real, knew a Prothean expert had signed off on the fact the beacons did interface with the mind, and would leave scrambled visions in a non-Prothean one.

Still, the idea of Reapers, giant sentient machines coming to destroy all complex life sounded so far out there, that there had to be a vid with that plot somewhere. Some would argue Shepard had obviously cracked.

Maybe she had.

Neither her crew, nor Captain Anderson seemed to think so, though. Hackett would have bet cash it was Anderson who left the fist-print on Udina's jaw. She even seemed to entertain very faint concerns that perhaps she was functionally compromised.

He pulled up Shepard's service record. Even as late as the last few weeks, she gave no impression of insanity—barring her assertions about the Reapers and the apocalypse. Successes, and laudable service above and beyond the call of duty. She must still be acting fairly rationally, if someone aboard the _Normandy_ had not declared her unfit for duty. Pressly, as the XO, or even Lt. Alenko, who was as by the book as a man could get.

And yet, they were still with her. She was still following the original parameters of the mission: apprehend Saren. So she believed in what she was doing. Believed in it enough to risk her career both as a Spectre and as a marine, to risk finding herself rejected by the only semblance of family she had left, and taking her crew into a potentially deadly situation.

Admiral Hackett paused before he opened a communications line to put the fleet on standby. Normally, it would be low-level, just until the renegade ship was caught.

This time, however, he put it on full alert. Just in case the sky was really falling.


	218. Holding Pattern

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Chief Engineer Adams consulted the datapad Tali handed him. "We're good, Adams," she announced, her voice a little tense. She should not even be down here, not with the possibility of being on the ground team when they reached Ilos. It was not like Shepard to leave people on tenterhooks, which could only meant she was not sure who should go and who should stay.

Or she was waiting until closer to time so there was less opportunity for those left behind to argue. Garrus certainly would. The turian hated being left on the Normandy, and showed it. It was while the turian got antsy that he most resembled a bird. If the man—and Adams used the word to denote 'male' only—had feathers, he would have been nibbling and preening needlessly.

Surprisingly enough, the holding pattern did not bother the krogan.

"Good, really good. You should think about getting ready for the drop to Ilos."

"I'd rather stay here, stay busy, Adams," Tali declared diffidently.

"Honey," Adams shook his head slowly, reminding himself that Tali was not even a full adult yet. He was sure Shepard would not take the quarian for that reason, even if the Commander would undoubtedly have an unassailably logical one in case Tali protested. "There's nothing to do down here but wait. Better get to steeling your nerves, you're going to need them," he motioned for her to leave engineering.

Tali sighed, then shrugged. To Adams' surprise she offered no more protest, but obediently left engineering. Well, let her spend time with her team. He had noticed the more sociable members of the ground team tended to band together. It would, he realized have been exceptionally _odd_ to see Shepard leading an all-human team. Lopsided.

Why this should occur to him now, he could not say, unless it was the fact that this holding pattern had his mind so full of buzzing nervousness that required simple thoughts and observations to maintain his calm exterior.

Like most of the crew, he had adopted a sort of ignorance too complete to be genuine. He was following lawful orders, and happy to be doing so. If, however, he was questioned about it, he would defend his actions—and Shepard's—viciously. She knew what she was doing, what she was risking. She did not need anyone second-guessing her, or gently reminding her what she was risking.

Alenko probably had _that_ covered. The lieutenant was undoubtedly loyal to Shepard, however irrational the rest of the galaxy portrayed her, but he was also loyal to The Regs, too. Doubtless Alenko was holed up somewhere,worrying about broken regs.

It was how the man got his game face on: worry about everything beforehand.

Adams' mouth twitched. Shepard did have a way of getting distinct personalities to work together as a well-oiled machine, a whole instead of various parts.

Which meant he had better stop day dreaming and make sure everything continued running smoothly. It would not do for anything to malfunction at a critical moment.

And work soothed _his_ nerves.

Navigator Pressly's nerves sang, rather than frazzled. If anyone had told him, when he accepted the posting on the SSV _Normandy_, that he would end up hijacking the ship, he would have laughed nervously and shied away from an obviously insane person.

Which, he supposed, made them all quite insane. Here he was, the Officer on Deck (Shepard was bracing for the landing on Ilos). The Officer on Deck indeed—he was a _pirate_, to put things loosely. If the Alliance caught up with them…

Normally he would begin to sweat at the thought. They would make a public spectacle out of Shepard, and quietly deal with the rest of the crew.

But only if they got caught, and Pressly had no intention of getting caught. No, there was something…empowering…about being on a renegade mission to save the galaxy—though he did not doubt that once they dropped into Ilos' system he would feel differently. He would feel differently when Shepard inevitably came on deck with that grim expression on her face.

But right now was right now, and it was best not to let himself worry too much. Adams was right: if he was headed for ulcers on a normal day, this was ten, twenty times worse. Even if part of him enjoyed the renegade-ishness of it all, he had never gotten into this much trouble in his whole career.

Of course, if Shepard pulled this off, no one would be headed for the noose. It did not do to show oneself as too ungrateful when a team went renegade for the sole purpose of pulling the collective galaxy's various appendages and extremities out of the fire.

And if anyone _could_ pull it off, that someone would be Shepard…

Pressly noticed Tali slipping onto the bridge, clearly someone who did not want to be noticed. Aliens still set Pressly's teeth on edge, but he had to admit to himself, if to no one else, that he'd gotten used to the ones on board. They were decent enough people. He could not vouch for their species as a whole…but nor could he do so for his own.

"Where're you headed, Tali?"

The quarian froze. "Ah, to the helm? I wanted a moment to speak with Joker."

It seemed a little ridiculous to send her back to the crew deck, after all, she was Adams' prized protégé. If she wanted to break something she could have done it by now. "Come ahead." He motioned briskly towards the helm. "Joker, you've got a visitor."

"_Wow, Pressly, you make it sound like I'm in jail. Hey, since this is pretty much suicide, do I get a last meal? 'Cause that'd be great for the guy flying the ship…_"

"Laugh it up, Joker. This bird's not going down because you got mustard on the controls." Pressly caught a faint giggle, but if it came from Tali, or one of the other crewmembers, he didn't know.


	219. Killing Time

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Joker did not realize it was Tali standing behind him, shuffling from foot to foot, until he turned around to see who was making all the nervous noise. "Hey kid," he said casually, but his puzzlement showed. The aliens notoriously did not come up to the CIC—or the helm—and it surprised him that Pressly let her come up.

"Adams kicked me out of engineering."

It was almost in the same tone a cute puppy would use to announce it had been banished from the house for normal puppy behaviors.

"Well, we are getting close where we need to be—shouldn't you be….I dunno, doing whatever you ground team people do?" Joker asked.

"No point doing it ridiculously early. I'd only end up checking things every quarter hour." Tali shook her head. She could not feel the hum and pulse of the engines here, but the view from the helm was good—even if navigation was more reliant on sensors and computers than a pilot's eyes.

There was a lot of space to watch in space.

Joker glanced at the empty co-pilot's seat. The number of people to come and slouch in it for a while was remarkable, ranging from Dr. Chakwas (who had a real reason to come 'visit') to Alenko (who had duties there in the first place), to Shepard (when she wanted sarcasm or silence). There were occasionally others, but those were the big players.

"Have a seat." He should stop calling her 'kid' and he knew it, but could not seem to break the habit. She _was_ a kid. For now, if she had found something for her Pilgrimage. She probably had, knowing Shepard's philosophy of 'one good turn deserves another'.

Tali sank into the chair, wiggling in it for a few minutes. The workstations on the bridge were not duplicated anywhere else on the ship. Well, anywhere she knew of.

A long silence in which Tali fidgeted followed. Finally her twitching got to him. "Okay, you need to talk." Joker glanced around, wondering why this seemed to happen to him. "So tell Dr. Joker what's eating you."

Tali's posture straightened. "I did _not_ come up here to be assessed by you, Joker."

"Ouch. Want to tell me what you _did_ come up here for?" He kicked himself. He meant it sarcastically, but realized someone who did not know him particularly well could (possibly would) read more into it than was there.

Tali was a kid. There were mothers aboard this ship. They got…touchy…when they even _thought_ they heard a GI hitting on a kid…

Tali gave a 'hmph' of amusement. "No."

Joker grimaced, a bit surprised by her answer, and by the smug, self-satisfied tone in which she said it. "Fine then."

"Fine." Tali crossed her knees and arms, gazing out of the window. "So, what do you plan to do when this is all over? When Shepard's using Saren's head for a kickball, I mean." She was not that confident in the situation, but it felt better using bravado.

Joker chuckled, recognizing a blind when he saw one, but he played along. He could not say with absolute certainty, but he did not think Tali was going where Shepard was. The quarian had courage, and Shepard had made use of it, so far ignoring the fact that Tali was the human equivalent of a seventeen year-old—not quite an adult yet, but capable of some adult responsibilities.

Not this time. With full-on danger, Shepard would want to be sure she could send Tali back to her people—though knowing Shepard, there was always more than one reason for benching someone.

"Keep doing what I'm doing. This Reaper thing isn't going away, you know."

"I know," Tali gazed out the windows.

"So, you going back to the Flotilla?"

"Yes. I have to go back, but I won't before we…what is it?" Tali scrunched up her face. She avoided using humanisms, because they did not always come out right. Garrus was living proof. "'Clip his things'?"

Joker choked audibly. If Tali had spoke any louder, several of the other personnel lining the walkway to the helm would have laughed as well. "Wings, Tali. 'Clip his wings'."

"And _that_ is why I don't use humanisms." Tali wrinkled her nose. With a roll of her eyes she let the mistake go. That was something else she had learned on this trip: how to let small mistakes go. Not out of complacency, but because small mistakes would occur no matter how well-laid plans were.

"I won't tell anyone." Joker settled back in his chair. He had never really considered the team breaking up. Stupid, probably, but there it was. He would not be perturbed if Dr. T'Soni left—he hardly ever remembered she was there. But he would miss Tali. He did not see much of her either, but when they did run into each other, it was not like talking to Garrus.

Someone get that guy a laxative. Help him work that stick out.

"Thanks." It would be strange, Tali decided, going back to the Flotilla. It was what she knew best, but at the same time, she was used to the _Normandy._ She missed the presence of other quarians, even the sometimes rigid governance that existed in the Flotilla's closed environment, but which did not exist here.

But she would miss the humans once she was gone. And Garrus. He had made her nervous at one point, but no more. Not unless he got that gleam in his eye. Besides, she had another reason for leaving.

The Reapers were coming. Maybe the Flotilla could come up with a way to contribute to the galaxy's defense. They were, after all, the largest fleet out there, if not the one with the best firepower. They had good shielding tech, however. They _had_ to.

The rest of the time-killing on the way to Ilos occurred in companionable silence, the pilot and the tech each mulling over their own thoughts.


	220. Do Not Disturb

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Wrex sat half asleep on his usual crates. He hated waiting. He understood the necessity, and dealt with his dislike, but _he hated waiting_. It would be worse, though, if this was just some clunker laboring to get from Point A to Point B.

Fortunately, it was not. The _Normandy_ was the fastest, best ship in the galaxy, bar none. Even the quarian said so, and she would know.

Wrex was not _antsy_ to get off the ship, because he was a krogan and krogan were impossibly big when indoors on an alien vessel. He was r_eady to get out there and kill something_. He still seethed from Virmire. He hated the agonizing over whether he had made the right call in cooperating with Shepard's decision to blow the facility.

He knew where his debts and loyalties lay, and he knew Shepard, at the very least, did not fear a krogan resurgence. Not with the Reapers closing in, anyway. She was bracing for total war—war like the turians understood it—she did not care where her help came from, so long as it came before all they had left to defend was smoking rubble.

Rubble like Tuchanka.

But first, that _pyjak_ Saren. Wrex's mouth curved into the krogan equivalent of a smug smile. He wanted that Spectre's head as a paperweight. If he could not pound Shepard into a gooey mass, Saren would be the next best thing.

And geth—wherever Saren would be, there would be a lot of geth. It made him wonder how, among her host of volunteers, Shepard was going to pick her ground team. She'd probably drag her pet biotic with her—and he'd go. Probably drag the turian too.

The thought made him grimace. He could understand why she would want the turian—that sniper rifle. He was not sure he caught the logic of the biotic, unless it was human culture to take your mate into battle with you. He was sure the two soldiers were getting to that point.

This was the sort of mission that needed a krogan, and _this_ krogan needed a mission. It was becoming tempting to start hassling the crew, in true Wrex fashion, for something to do. With everyone as keyed-up as they were, he knew it was a bad idea.

They would need all hands fighting fit, and he had a feeling he would see some of that infamous human pack behavior if he started anything now.

It was funny, really. It _would_ take a pack of humans to take down a krogan.

A pack of humans, a horde of geth,…or just one damn bug. The irony was not lost on him: the bigger they are, the harder they fall…and then something microscopic topples the greatest warriors in the galaxy.

Genocide by something grown in a tube.

He continued to bask in irritation. Shepard was smart, if she found him in a mood to start ripping out bulkheads she would take him along, for fear he might do something awful to her pretty ship.

-J-

Garrus sat at Chief Williams' old workstation, his sniper rifle disassembled, organized neatly in pieces before him. It was almost possible the for untrained to reassemble it without directions, so neat was the layout. However, his talons ticked gently against the table, and he made no sign of putting the weapon back together.

He sat scowling, his mandibles pulled close to his chin, with no intention of continuing on this task until he had a better mindset.

If Saren got away again, he would not be able to take it. Of course, if Saren got away, the Reapers would probably be rolling through the galaxy and he would be in no position to care.

He shook his head and began reassembling his rifle, trying to pay attention to _exactly_ what he was doing, not permitting habit and practice to lull his mind or quiet his nerves. There was no wriggling out of this one, not for Saren.

Garrus glanced off to one side of the work table wondering, if Williams had lived, would they both be sitting here, assembling their favorite rifles? Would she even be willing to share the space?

He shook his head sharply. It was not as though they were close friends, but she had been decent. She had made a sacrifice that should be honored.

Focus on Saren, focus on the mission. Shepard had to take him along—it was a matter of pride and honor. She understood both concepts as well as any turian. Yet part of him was not so certain. Shepard sometimes did the _strangest_ things.

He shook his head again. Focus on the rifle. He would need it in good working order. Perfect working order, since this mission was just about suicidal. Strange he should be so eager to get down to it—or maybe he, like the rest of the crew, could not handle waiting. It strained the nerves and made his mandibles itch, sitting here, unable to do anything.

It was hard enough settling down to give his rifle a once-over. He did not like to think what kind of fidgeting he would do once he did not have that meticulous task for comfort. The pieces of the weapon clicked into place easily. He could almost turn his brain off to do this task, but knew better than to give in to that impulse. It represented carelessness, a sloppiness this mission would not countenance.

Complacency would get someone, maybe several someones, killed. This mission would claim losses, further losses, and everyone knew it. Best not to do anything that might add to those numbers. Best not to do (or forget to do) anything that might add _him_ to those losses.

He would bet credits it was how most of the crew felt—even the ones who knew they would never see Ilos as anything other than a marble in the void, or a swift fly-by as the _Normandy _dropped the Mako.


	221. Solitude

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Liara could not concentrate. The Prothean artifact on the table before her registered as nothing more than a lump of intricately carved rock. In her current state of mind, she could throw it across the room and watch it disintegrate with no emotion.

Well, no emotion past the relief of throwing something and watching it break. She could not remember a darkness as absolute as the one into which they seemed to be heading. The entire ship—supposedly excluding Shepard's ground team—was awake, and at duty stations. With the impending decisions of who would go with Shepard and who would stay with the ship, the ground team was not sleeping either.

She leaned her elbows on the worktop, her forehead digging into the heels of her hands. How did these career marines, mercenaries…whatever Garrus wanted to call himself…deal with the waiting? It seemed their lives either ticked by in flurried rushes of action or crawled by in tense waiting.

No wonder they burned out so fast. Krogan probably would too, if they did not have all those redundant organs and systems. Part of her wanted to stay here, all alone, and brood. Part of her, the greater part, wanted company. Someone with whom to share the wait. She considered joining Dr. Chakwas, but the older woman was single-mindedly organizing and re-organizing the medbay, with a look of grimness that threatened something like short temper.

Liara slipped out of the medbay into the silent mess hall. There was always Shepard, and Shepard was the type to want to spend a few minutes, at least, in solitude. Liara had just reached up to tap on Shepard's office door when she stopped.

Her eyes fell to the door. The red locking mechanism was active.

Liara bit her lip, turning sharply on her heel. She would rather try to rip Sovereign apart on her own than bother Shepard—and, she suspected, Alenko—right now. "Well," she murmured to herself, "That's that…"

"Dr. T'Soni!" Liara froze as one of the minor crewmen appeared in the mess hall, looking harassed. "You seen the Lieutenant?" He kept glancing at Shepard's door, as if debating whether to bypass Alenko and head straight to her.

"No, no I haven't. He's probably laying low, so he'll be fighting fit when…when the time comes." Liara's voice wobbled as she admitted the fact that they were flying headlong into death's arms.

"Oh, right…um…is the Commander busy?"

Liara arched her painted eyebrows, drawing herself up. "That poor woman is taking a few well-earned moments for herself before she leads her team into a mission they may not come back from. I suggest you let her have her moments of solitude. Executive Officer Pressly should be more than capable of dealing with whatever the issue is." She gave him a shrewd look which effectively rattled him, and set him double-timing back to the CIC.

Whatever it was, it obviously was not important. Silently, she fetched a mug of coffee for herself, then one for Dr. Chakwas, before returning to the solitude she had abandoned.

-J-

Dr. Chakwas heard Liara leave and come back a few moments later. She mumbled thanks to the asari when Liara set a mug of coffee—with creamer and sugar both—on an empty workspace before returning to the back of the medbay. Chakwas' nerves hummed uncomfortably. She had seen battle from a spaceship before. She had seen the aftermath of such battles.

And yet, she had never had the sensation of waiting like this, suspended in time while the galaxy moved around her. Even now, Liara's presence seemed more like that of a ghost, the clean room where Tali usually stayed empty put her in mind of a crypt awaiting occupants.

In the solitude of the medbay, such morbid thoughts would persist. It was hard, even, to have faith in Shepard.

No, she had to have faith in Shepard. Shepard had done the nearly-impossible already, and she had so much motivation, so much drive. If anyone could pull this off, it would be Shepard. She had to believe that, and be ready when the ground team came back.

But Virmire had shaken her confidence. Shepard could only be one place at a time, and Chakwas knew Williams' death weighed heavier on Shepard than on anyone else. She was not sure how much of Alenko's strong front was just that—he also undoubtedly felt the weight of being the one to survive.

Chakwas shook her head again. No good thinking like that. She glanced over her implements, the necessities it would take to patch up an entire platoon of injured marines. There was nothing she could do but reshuffle everything, but there was no more efficient way to set up. She had done all she could, and there was still plenty of time before they reached Ilos.

She fetched the coffee Liara had brought, wondering when the asari had acquired a taste for it; Liara had undoubtedly had a mug of her own when she came in. They had all come a long way, or so it seemed, as Chakwas settled in her chair, closing her eyes to better meditate over progress and the smell of her coffee.

Just what she needed, more caffeine. But an image of Wrex giving the coffee pot a shifty look before filling a mug and tossing it down without ceremony crept into her mind's eye...

...Shepard, Alenko, and Williams waiting for a fresh pot...

...Garrus eyeing the coffee dubiously, before rolling his beady eyes...

Dr. Chakwas got to her feet, moving back to the other room of the medbay to find Liara standing before her workspace, one arm braced against the worktop, her expression crinkled into dubiousness. "Doctor T'Soni?"

The asari jumped. "Is there a problem, Doctor?"

"Not at all…I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind some company?" The offer was hesitant, but well meant.

Liara smiled, raising her coffee to her lips. "It's a much better alternative than solitude. Please, sit down."


	222. Want

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"It'll really hit the fan when we get to Ilos," Alenko noted grimly.

"Yes, it will." All Shepard knew for sure at this point, was that she was grateful for someone helping her bear the burdens threatening to crush her. She did not have the words to express it, but wanted to find them, before it was too late.

"If things don't go well…" Alenko's only yellow streak, which inevitably appeared around Shepard, reared like a monster popping out during a horror-vid. "I want you to know, I've enjoyed serving under you."

_Idiot_, he admonished, _you're way past that and you know it._

"Thank you." Alenko always left himself a way out. Still, words like honor, duty, and 'for the good of the Alliance' were not words she wanted, _needed_ to hear.

Not when heading for Ilos, with Sovereign and his puppet so close to achieving galactic destruction. Not when the dead kept piling up, and would continue to pile up.

"I'm with you, Jalissa. All the way."

Shepard registered this as a personal appeal, rather than the former professional one. She patted the hand now engulfing her shoulder. It was better than 'honor to serve with you', and no more than she had a right to expect.

He knew what she was thinking, and knew very well she had let him get past the shields that usually kept others at bay. "You know…you're right."

"About what?"

"About everything."Alenko let go of Shepard's shoulder, taking her hands. Tiny by comparison to his own. Delicate by comparison to his own. But just as dangerous. Just as deadly.

Just as human.

_Human_. That was the word for the thought, which previously demanded proper identification. She made him feel _human_. It was a form of acceptance he hadn't looked for…forever. Yet he'd found it, nonetheless.

It was why he would do just about anything to keep her safe. But Shepard was not the sort of woman you could protect that way. So, second-best was to help her…comfort her, if he could. He wasn't sure _how_, except that the things it took to accomplish this were invariably simple, too simple…

Like the touch of a hand and a quiet admission bridging the gap between two people with too few illusions. Who knew what it was to lose the innocent outlook of someone without blood on their hands. Who knew what _survival_ inevitably cost.

"Jalissa…" He forced his long habit of 'leave a way out' to fall silent. "…I can't bear the thought of losing you." The words he really wanted to say went unspoken, and with good reason, but echoes of the real sentiment remained.

The knowledge that people Shepard loved tended to end up dead made the three unspoken words frightening to her. She could only lay a hand over his heart, the gesture speaking for her.

Their still-clasped hands pulled apart, Shepard's resting on Alenko's cheek, his wrapping around the back of her neck. "I didn't come here to…" Alenko murmured.

"I know." She did know.

He hadn't come with any intentions other than to speak his mind.

She had not intended him to stay, once he'd said his piece. Alenko—Kaidan—was many things. 'A gentleman' was in the top three.

"You can tell me to leave." Alenko breathed against her lips.

"I…don't want you to leave." She was finally certain of that. She could not think in a straight enough line to explain her reasons…she only knew it had nothing to do with the fact they might die within a day or so. "Kaidan, I…" her words failed.

Alenko enveloped her tightly in his arms. Where she was safe. "You make me feel…_human._"

One pale hand drifted to settle between his shoulder blades, as she closed her eyes. "You make me feel…_alive_." So much of what she once thought was dead had begun, under Alenko's influence, poking up tiny shoots amid the barren wasteland of her heart.

"This…can't change anything…"

She looked him in the eyes as he said it. She could see what it cost him to draw this line, but she was more worried about _him_ letting this change things.

"This is the finest crew I've ever served with…I don't want to mess that up…" It took Alenko as much effort to say the words as it took Shepard to interpret them as anything more than so much background noise.

"I understand."

Alenko nodded, relieved to have gotten the words out, relieved she had accepted them as if she had _expected_ them.

Shepard knew he was still waiting for her to make the first move. Even if they were both nervous, he would let her set the pace, and she appreciated it. As she let him hold her, take that evening's first kiss, her hand slid across his side, mindful of the bruises incurred during the battle with Saren.

The same battle had left Shepard bruised, the marks livid and visible above the neck of her shirt.

Years of general isolation made the close contact a novelty.

The contours of stomach and chest slipped beneath her slow-moving hands, until she tangled her fingers in his shoulder harness, finally disengaging it.

Alenko paused kissing her neck long enough to raise his arms, the blue BDU shirt peeling away like a protective shell, revealing the ugly bruises across his ribs. Shepard slid her fingers across the flesh, surprised by how warm to the touch humans were, even though she knew how high their standard temperature ran. She shifted closer to him, her eyes falling shut as careful hands slipped her shoulders free of her own harness.

Warm fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her sides, drifting up her back, before her own top was peeled off with exceeding care. Savoring the touch, the feel, the _nearness_ of him as he pressed another gentle kiss against her mouth, she could hardly drag a hand away to brush the control pad near the door that killed the lights.

And locked the room.


	223. Stolen Moments

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Jalissa was not really asleep, but Kaidan did not mind pretending not to know it. It was, undoubtedly, a pleasant way to spend these stolen moments, wrapped around her as if they were somewhere other than the _Normandy_, heading for Ilos to stop galactic apocalypse.

For these stolen moments, it did not matter—just as the abandoned blue BDUs did not matter, nor the rank insignias, nor the surnames on detachable tags. For these stolen moments, they were simply Jalissa and Kaidan, and nothing existed past the doors to the room. This last bit was actually easier done than one might think.

He craned his neck, careful not to dislodge her in any way, to drop a kiss onto her shoulder.

She shifted, nestling closer to him, her back to his chest. Perhaps she was closer to falling asleep than he thought, for her breathing was growing slow and deep. Just as well. Everyone knew she wasn't sleeping well to begin with. Not when anyone up that late could stumble onto her sitting in the mess, dozing, or working, or just sitting there pale and worried.

Maybe he was old fashioned—or maybe just feeling extraordinarily sentimental—but it seemed to him as though falling asleep in someone else's presence, at least in a situation like this, spoke of a certain implicit trust. There was vulnerability in the sleeping state, and to be allowed to witness that vulnerability was…it meant something to him, considering how often Shepard's position required her not to show vulnerability or weakness, lest those who depend on her strength lose heart, or those seeking weaknesses exploit them.

Some days she really did seem to be the person the whole galaxy either leaned on or wanted dead.

Well, she was safe enough for the moment. Even in his head, the thought smacked of self-satisfaction and pride. She was safe _with him_. His drifting hand slid across the scar from a bullet in her side. She was not exactly the patchwork of scars and bruises he had expected. She had several of the former—he was curious about the splotch-shaped one on her right collarbone—and Saren had certainly left her with quite a few of the latter.

He stopped this line of thought, even as it left him feeling cold and thoroughly resentful towards the turian. Saren, and thoughts about him, had no place in here. Not right now, anyway. These were his_, Kaidan's_, stolen moments with the woman he loved, and badass, nihilistic, brainwashed turians had no business intruding. None. Whatsoever.

Remarkable how much easier it was to sequester those thoughts in some forgotten closet of his mind, than the one he usually tried to stifle.

He liked the way she fit against him. He could still feel ghostly memories of her hands brushing against his skin. And oddly enough, he had always thought the beacons, the visions…just _everything_ would have contributed to her having very cold fingers.

She did not. By any stretch of the imagination.

-J-

Jalissa was indeed almost asleep. Several nights of sleeping badly, Virmire, the aftermath thereof, stealing the _Normandy_, all of it piled up onto her shoulders until she could finally take it no longer. So now she was exhausted, almost sleeping.

The warm mass she was currently snuggling up against helped, too, one heavy arm wrapped firmly around her, reassuring. Her mind, sagging under the weight of things all labeled under the nondescript heading 'too much; to be organized later', refused to let her think too hard. It was easier to just drift in warm, tactile comfort until sleep finally pulled her under, thoughts circling placidly like so many lazy goldfish.

It was _safe. _Even with her mind melting within the walls of her skull, she tried to drive away the comfortable notion. Life had taught her nowhere was safe…

…nowhere but here, apparently. The notion refused to dislodge itself, and she gave up trying to get rid of it as she shifted slightly, unpinning her other arm. He relaxed his grip long enough to let her move, but only until she'd settled again.

She knew he was watching her fall asleep. Strangely enough, this did not bother her, in fact she felt quite comfortable with the idea. She felt quite comfortable in general, since Kaidan was warm to curl up against. Even after moving into the commanding officer's quarters, she continued suffering from 'spacer syndrome's' cold feet. Not tonight, though. Something about being so close to another human seemed to ease the antics of a human mind in deep space.

Her eyelids grew perceptibly heavier, but no flickering images flashed across her mind's eye, like the shadows cast by a guttering candle. No echoes of ancient sound filled her ears like the roar of high winds. Rather, she simply found quiet, companionable darkness, and was grateful for it.

It was usual, after all her previous years of serving on a spaceship, for her to wake in the middle of the night for an hour or two, to walk around the ship and make sure all was well before going back to bed. In recent weeks it had become usual for her to wake because of nightmares she could not articulate, where half the horror of them was in what she could not see, but what she _knew was lurking_.

Maybe, her mind rendered complacent by the illusion of safety, the dreams would not come. Or if they did, perhaps, somehow, they would not be so bad. The hope of a decent night's rest melted into being like a star making its flickering appearance in a dusky purple sky, to settle with the other twinkling diamonds of lucid thought now winking at her.

She snuggled deeper against Kaidan's chest. Wouldn't it be so nice, she thought as Kaidan dropped a gentle kiss on her shoulder, if he was still here when she woke up…?

And he was, when blissfully dreamless sleep finally let her loose of its restoring, mind-healing grip.


	224. Luck

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The mess deck was full of aliens and humans alike, or so it seemed as the ground team gathered there, tense with nerves. Quite a few of them were practically bristling, aggressive, agitated, disliking the confined quarters of waiting on a spaceship.

Shepard appreciated the willingness of the ground team to throw themselves into the fire to complete the mission. As such, she could not objectively pick who should go and who should stay, and she knew it. She also did not want to spend a half-hour arguing back and forth with people about her decision.

If ever there was a time when her judgment would come into question, this would be it, simply because no one wanted to go but no one wanted to stay behind when friends went forward. It was the choice between dying in battle and living with regret (or shame, for those who failed to volunteer). She had even had to put out a shipwide order—after three volunteers tracked her down before she declared the ground team off duty—that _no one_ was to volunteer except the ground team.

She needed the crew at their stations.

So, she had prepared for just such an eventuality, and produced a handful of 'straws', no more than bits of paper, two of which had blue ink staining the hidden ends. "Blue straws go—white stay." No one could accuse her of any sort of anything with this method. They could only curse their luck—however it played out.

Liara went first, perplexed, pulling a white-ended paper. Shepard could not help thinking this was a good thing. Liara was little more than a kid, and Shepard had already lost one kid to this mission. Liara was not a field agent, not really, and everyone knew it, including Liara herself.

Tali went next—same story. White tip, and despite the fact she was perfect for dealing with geth, Shepard felt another surge of relief to know she was not taking a barely-out-of-childhood individual along. She prided herself on the fact that she did not usually let the age consideration affect her judgment, but now that her judgment was left entirely up to chance and luck, she felt entitled to a real opinion that was wholly her own.

Tali grimaced with disgust, but held her silence. Well, maybe if they needed to get more juice out of the engines she might be able to do something useful to the mission, aside from rattling around like loose cargo. It wasn't fair, but that was life, as she had already learned.

Alenko went next, his fingers brushing her hand as he took a straw. The touch tingled, but neither gave any sign that anything was out of place. Alenko did not even look at Shepard, his eyes fixed on the paper, which he immediately held up. He sighed, a sound of relief—he was going. He did not want to think about what it would be like to have to wait aboard the _Normandy. _He could not read anything in Shepard's expression. He, for one, felt better knowing that if she got blown up…he probably wouldn't live long enough to feel horrible about it.

Small comfort, but there it was.

Shepard's lips thinned slightly—she was not sure which would be worse, having him with her, or having him stay behind. Fortunately, anyone watching her would think it was only a commanding officer seeing a friend draw the short straw.

"That's one," Shepard announced neutrally. "Go suit up, then head up to the bridge." She wanted to be there when Ilos drew into view, and she wanted her team with her. Misery loved company.

Garrus pulled a straw, shoulders slumping when it came out white. "Damn." His beady blue eyes followed Alenko until the lieutenant disappeared behind the wall housing the elevator. Some people had all the luck, and now there was no arguing with Shepard. He could argue until he was blue in the face—to use the humanism—but it wouldn't help. She could cite 'you drew your straw' all day long.

Was that a quirk of a grin he caught, as she glanced over at him? Mild humor at knowing what he was thinking? It was creepy how she always seemed to know what was going on in her crewmates' heads. At least, she seemed to know what was going on in his.

Wrex grinned, knowing what was left. He took the last strip of paper delicately in his stubby fingers, pulled it free of Shepard's pale hand, and held it up as Alenko had done. This was no time for gloating, but he would have liked to—to rile people up one more time, in case this was his last mission. "Well, what do you know? Looks like I'm getting that new paperweight after all." He rumbled, crunching the paper in his hand. Ha! Just where a krogan belonged, and now no one could argue it.

He liked this method of settling who went and who stayed; he suspected this liking would last until his luck turned, but that was not today.

Garrus scowled at Wrex, who ignored it. Trust the krogan to have all the luck. Still, if he could not go, maybe it was not so bad for Wrex to be the next best thing. The krogan was huge, a tank in a fight, and, like Alenko, a biotic. That had to count for _something_.

And all those redundant systems and organs would make him a good meatshield, if things got really bad.

"Get suited up, we're going in." Shepard announced coldly, swallowing hard to quell her nerves. She did not say it, but the feeling of four-eyed uglies with the back of her neck in scope increased. This was it; they would hit Ilos within the half hour and things would be settled, one way or the other. If they could get ahead of Saren…

…she had a feeling her luck was not that strong.


	225. Decay

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Her breathing loud in her helmet, her heart pounding, her hands shaking from the supposedly-impossible landing—she certainly owed Joker a six-pack of whatever he liked to drink—Shepard pushed the door of the Mako open, slipping out cautiously. The springy turf yielded underfoot, and showed long rents where the Mako had come crashing down.

The air of Ilos hung soft and warm, clinging to the skin like sleep to the eyes of the weary. A sense of decayed grandeur hung in the air like the pollen drifting down from nameless trees, somber and sad. Silently, many lives seemed to linger here, mourning all they once knew. Was it so with all great empires?

Unbidden, words skittered across Shepard's mind like mice. She wondered if she had heard Williams speak them, or if it came from something further back in memory.

"_And on the pedestal these words appear:  
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'  
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare  
The lone and level sands stretch far away."* _

The words made her shiver, seeming to bode ill. The Protheans had already fallen—all she knew might be next. And then what? Would some other civilization come and look at the remains of the Council- and non-Council races? Or would the Reapers be more successful in their purges this time?

No. She would not let that happen. If one person could set events moving to divert the hammer blow, she would do it. There was no 'maybe', no 'if'. Either she did, or she did not. Either _they_ did—if Saren was stopped, progression halted for a time—or they did not.

Not this time. It was the Reapers' turn to watch their empire crumble into ash, to succumb wholly and utterly to decay. The words gave her no strength, no comfort, but they brought with them resolution enough to quell her doubts, her insecurities.

"Well, we did it." Wrex's words fell like lead balloons, muffled by the closeness of the air. No breezes ruffled the stillness, no cool draft interrupted the air, giving the complex the sense of being suspended in time.

"And we're in comm. blackout." Shepard finished softly, starting forward towards the crevasse that would allow them access to the complex into which Saren had fled.

She would not let him get away. If there was another way round—and there always was—she would find it. But unlike before there was no snarl for revenge, or to take him down before he could hurt anyone else. Just a weary need for this to end, for some sense of finality for a battle that had stretched too long and too far.

Her mind accepted the Prothean structures as 'normal' even as Alenko and Wrex peered around curiously. She could scarcely have felt more like a ghost wandering old haunts if she went back to Mindoir, to look down at the headstones of her family.

Her sense of Prothean memory, granted by the Cipher, gave no exact knowledge of anything, no filled-in gaps of specific instances involving this place. All she had was a lingering sense of familiarity, a déjà vu brought on by the architecture, and the spindly subjects of many statues who, to her, seemed far less alien now than she would have ever expected.

Soft mosses adorned much of the stonework, and the air, though still, was gentle to the nose.

Alenko watched Shepard drift forward, her weapon loose in her hand, but not at the ready. It was too much to hope that she had some kind of Cipher-memory of this place. It was far too much to hope she could locate such a thing, in the immense well of information the Cipher contained.

The silence pressed uncomfortably against his eardrums as he followed her, his neck prickling uncomfortably. Shouldn't there be more geth? Some kind of resistance? The place felt like a trap, start to finish.

He did not believe in ghosts, but walking through this place, he half expected to feel spectral fingers reaching through his armor to brush against his neck, or hear barely audible whispers. Many of the walls and statues showed signs of erosion, the crumbling of stone as Time worked his will.

"We should've run into something by now…" Alenko glanced around again, wondering if it was the silence, the stillness, or the whole situation that had him feeling so paranoid. For this was not caution, it was outright boundless paranoia.

The paranoia might keep him alive, though. It might help keep Shepard alive.

Wrex snorted, and Shepard flinched at the steadfast pronouncement. She shook herself, turning to face Alenko, feeling as though she had suddenly woken up, to find unpleasant dreams to be just that. His living voice broke through the growing babble of the Cipher which had, yet again, sneaked up quietly behind her to fill her ears.

"Hmph. What's the matter with you?" Wrex grunted, giving Alenko a look that clearly indicated this jumpiness was unbecoming in this situation. Part of him liked this place no more than the humans, but he would adopt cute, cuddly kittens and devote his life to the teaching of origami—whatever that was—before he admitted it.

Of _course_ they should have run into something, but the absence of enemies was not something to get creeped out about. It meant they just needed to look a little harder, because the fight _was_ here. Somewhere.

It was one of the few unalterable, unfailing rules in the universe: _go looking for a fight, and you will inevitably find one_. It was that simple. "You're just afraid of the booger-man."

He did not understand why, suddenly and unexpectedly, the two humans started laughing. The sound did not shatter the silence, or push back the stillness, but it seemed to break the spell the decay of a once-great empire left upon this place.

Wrex rolled his eyes. Humans.

-J-

*"Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley.


	226. Clans

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"So, how does it work with you humans?" Wrex asked, settling back in the seat, his shotgun across his knees.

Shepard's eyes did not veer off the road. "What do you mean?"

"Does he join your clan, or do you join his?"

Alenko sputtered in the gun turret, but was unable to say much as targeting showed another cluster of geth ahead. The gunfire rocked and rattled the occupants, making Shepard's clenched teeth chatter as she bowled the Mako into the one geth Alenko had missed.

"I don't _have_ a clan, Wrex." Shepard growled, wondering how the krogan knew. She had _thought_ she and Alenko showed suitable discretion.

Wrex patted her back ingratiatingly, watching her seethe. "So? There's still you."

"Who died and made _you_ my uncle?" Shepard's tone told Wrex he was pushing his luck. But since they were all probably about to die…

"You'd know that better than I would, Shepard."

Shepard was silent for a moment. "Who else knows?" And when Wrex did not answer. "_Who else knows, Wrex_?"

He had crossed a line. She looked positively homicidal—a look startlingly similar to the one her former CO had worn, right before she planted a fist into his throat. "_I_ can smell him all over you, Shepard. Not the sort of thing you get from sitting around and talking."

Alenko, in the gun turret, blushed unseen.

Shepard did not, Garrus' insight on turians ringing in her ears: _own your decisions._

"…and the asari. You humans are pretty well ignorant."

Except Joker, and she had been very careful what he saw. Or thought he saw. Then again, if he thought to check timestamps, he'd know she'd 'done something screwy' to maintain discretion. As far as Liara…well. The asari was still a kid, and would probably find this something not to be questioned.

"Keep your mouth shut about it." Shepard declared, gunfire shaking the vehicle again.

Wrex grinned, recognizing the 'I'm going to kill you' tone as a real threat. "Just asking."

After a very awkward silence, Shepard took the bait. "Which way were you leaning, since you brought it up?"

In the gun turret, Alenko bit down a snicker. He had sort of wondered too, but since Wrex had made it clear this was a Wrex-Shepard conversation…

"He should join yours," Wrex answered dismissively. "It'd be against the krogan norm, but against the norm seems to work for you."

"It's against the norm for humans too," Shepard responded.

"Yeah, well, it's usually a bad idea to let people know where your strengths lie." Wrex glanced out of the corner of his eyes towards Alenko. The lieutenant was fidgeting quite a bit back there.

"Is this where you threaten his life if he makes me cry?" Shepard asked, running over another geth.

"Nice one, Shepard," Alenko muttered, distinctly feeling left out.

Wrex snorted. "I'm not part of your clan, Shepard. It's not my job." Shepard nodded approvingly. So Wrex, enjoying giving her digs in the ribs, continued, "Besides, he already knows. Knows you won't take that kind of crap, that is."

"Wrex, this may come as a complete shock to you, but not all human males are scumbags. Just the ones you usually work with."

Hidden from view Alenko grinned. Ouch.

"What? He doesn't like thinking he's got competition…?" Wrex laughed raucously as Alenko kicked the back of Wrex's chair, a jolt the krogan obviously felt.

"Come on, Wrex, we both know you've still got a thing for my old CO," Shepard purred, patting Wrex's knee.

The gesture more than the tone unnerved Wrex. Shepard was not a touchy feely type. And neither was he. Payback was a bitch.

Shepard was…something else. Still…

The Mako shuddered as Shepard hit the mangled remains of a geth armature, dragging it for several hundred feet before the scream of metal on the causeway stopped.

"You still in contact with her?" Wrex asked.

Alenko shuddered. Now _that_ was just wrong.

Shepard chuckled mirthlessly. Wrex's attempts to get her riled had long ago ceased to wrong-foot or annoy her. Now it was just Wrex. Better to stow indignation somewhere and either end the conversation…or play it along. "I dunno, Wrex, she might be a little much for you. What about that skinny little merc friend of yours? Aleena. Won't she get jealous?"

"Nice try. 'Leena and I had…too many artistic differences…" Wrex wasn't the only one laughing now.

"And shooting at each other wasn't just a precursor?" Shepard couldn't believe they were having this conversation now. Then again…there was probably no better time. "Well, I'm pretty sure Robbins would have 'artistic differences' with you too." Bruising differences. Literally.

Wrex sighed. "Unlucky. If you talk to her again, tell her I said hi."

Shepard's smile vanished like smoke in the air, as one of the displays indicated a mass effect field up ahead One that seemed to grow more unsteady as seconds ticked. "There it is! That's gotta be it! Alenko! It's gonna get bumpy!"

"Why? What's wrong?" Wrex demanded, unable to see the display past Shepard.

"Because. The Conduit's closing." Shepard grit her teeth and floored the accelerator again. The Mako groaned in protest as it lumbered along like a charging bear. At these speeds the slightest errant nudge of the wheel left or right would send the Mako careening out of control.

Wrex looked away from the tiny window on his right, to Shepard's profile. Once again, he could not entirely suppress wondering if Shepard was some kind of shell-less krogan mutant. It would explain a lot. It was _ridiculous_, but it would explain a lot about someone who learned how _not_ to be explained as a survival tactic.

"Shepard…" Wrex growled as Shepard bowled her way through the geth, towards the miniature mass relay.

"What?" Shepard's eyes remained fixed.

"You uh…might wanna slow down…" She was going to hit it at this rate…actually breakthrough the field and…

"Why? I'm going to shove this vehicle down Saren's throat and tickle his gizzard. Remember?"


	227. Drive

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The Mako slammed into the ground and skidded, bouncing and rolling off the nearest revetment. Inside, two marines and one krogan rattled and jostled, safety harnesses yanking tight, knocking the wind out of them. "Everyone okay?" Shepard asked tersely, finding the catch on her harness. Even with her armor, or perhaps because of it, she could _really _feel the places where the harness jerked, refusing to let her fly around the cabin.

"Hmph," Wrex merely grunted, waiting to undo his own harness. Shepard could slip out through her own side, but if he unharnessed now, gravity would work. She was tough, but not up to having several hundred kilos of krogan dropped on her.

"Fine, Commander," Alenko slipped his harness at the sounds of a window being broken. A clatter of armor indicated Shepard was wiggling her way out. Alenko slipped into the cabin, following Wrex out through the passenger door.

The air smelled of burning, burnt plastic, burnt corpses, burnt everything. Amazing how few bodies there actually were. Any one of the trio would have expected visible signs of mass carnage, high sentient casualties. The only thing moving around was Avina's static display as she gave out reams of useless information that, until now, there was no one there to hear.

Shepard slipped out of the vehicle's corpse, thanking her parents for a slender build, even one muscled by hard knocks and military life. Skittering back, she watched Wrex and then Alenko hoist themselves free from the passenger side of the vehicle. "Oh…" She shook her head slowly, gazing at the vehicle. It had crumpled in places from the force of the slam; it was scored, as was the floor.

If they survived, part of her wondered if the scoring would live on as a monument to the first team to hit the Citadel—and hit it in such a spectacular, unexpected way.

"Wow, Shepard, you really killed the car," Alenko announced groggily, shaking his head. The idea that they had just run an Alliance standard-issue vehicle through a Prothean-built mass relay which flung it into the Citadel—practically onto the Council's doorstep—was ludicrous.

They had done it, and it was ludicrous. It would make a great story, assuming they survived to tell it and that someone else survived to hear about it, but even though they had done it…it sounded ridiculous.

Shepard gave a thin, strained giggle. "Yeah well…I always hated the Mako…ugh. Garrus'll be pissed." The running joke about Garrus' attraction to the vehicle never died out, and the turian accepted it in stride. Garrus could give as good as he got.

"I always knew you hated the Mako. Not I know it hates you, too…" Wrex snickered. The universal 'all clear, all well' nervous laughs did more to reassure the bruised and shaken members of the team than any amount of cheeky banter or sarcasm. "So…you want to take a breather, Shepard? Make sure he's okay?" Wrex's red eyes glittered as he nodded to Alenko.

"Go space yourself, old man." Alenko flexed a hand, until a thin film of dark energy appeared. It was Wrex being Wrex, and thus it did not bother him. He and Shepard both had their soldier helmets on—and there was nothing shooting at them yet.

Speaking of shooting, he was the first to remember why there were so few people on the Presidum ring. Many of them would have been evacuated as quickly as possible, being the upper crust of the Citadel, diplomats and politicians.

Which meant Udina had probably managed to squiggle out of anything particularly dangerous. For the time being, at least. But what about Anderson, down in C-Sec? Alenko shook his head to clear it. Anderson was tough, he was probably out of lockup as soon as C-Sec realized they had a _real problem_.

Shepard shook her head, grinning at Wrex. "And let you to have all the bad guys? No go, Wrex. Good try, though." She unshouldered her shotgun and charged it. This was no time, as on Feros, to dictate 'five points apiece', but she wished it could have been. Her stomach quavered, making her glad she had not eaten anything recently. She could have a protein bar if she survived long enough to see this through. "Let's go get him." No one had to ask who 'him' was. There was only one him being hunted. The other thing was an 'it'.

But one thing at a time. This was no time to let the things looming on the horizon distract them from things shooting at them in the now.

"You know," Shepard remarked as she led the way towards the elevator that would take them to the Council Chambers. "I'll bet they make us financially responsible for this. The Mako and the damage to the floor, I mean." Worst coming to worst, she would just put it on her Spectre credit card. If she did that, though, they might just take said credit card away. After all, she was only half a Spectre.

It did not matter now, of course. Right now, she was the only Spectre on hand, the squad leader of the only team on hand, the only team with any hope of carrying on.

Frak the Council for not listening to her when they had the chance. She could only hope if she found a way to save them, they would demonstrate the ability to learn from past mistakes.

"It's your bad driving," Wrex chuckled, thumping Shepard on the shoulder as they reached the elevator. For a moment the trio stood looking at the great glass tube, leading endlessly up. They knew the ride was long, but it looked longer today. "You need a Tomkah, Shepard. You could drive that thing into a _wall,_ and the Tomkah would win."

Shepard and Alenko caught one another's eyes, smiles forming behind helmet visors. The look only lasted a few seconds, but indicated that they were on the same brain wave.

'Tomkah' tuff?


	228. Fallen

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

For a single moment, Saren perceived how far he had truly fallen. In that moment, despite the whispers in his skull directing him, prompting him, everything seemed to pull together into one cohesive whole. Looking into the intense face of the human who had fought so relentlessly, fouled so many of his plans, cost him more than he could count in terms of time, personnel, and resources.

If, for a single moment, he could look past the fleshy human features behind the helmet, ignore that she had too many fingers and was squishy-soft beneath the armor…it was like seeing an echo. Not of himself, necessarily, there were too many differences for that.

No, it was the ingenuity, the adaptability, the dogged determination. She could not dodge bullets, but she could make it harder for them to find a mark. She could not outrun death, but she knew how to find cover to hide from it. She could not stop the Reapers, but she did not, could not give up. She could not being back the dead, but she could save the living.

She reminded him of Nihlus. They were both idealists, but of a practical sort. They did not aim for perfection but worked to minimize losses, usually at personal cost. They were working to save the galaxy. From anything. From anyone. Not because they wanted to, not because they felt obligated to do so…but because there was no one else.

_Everything is under control_, and/then a trigger pull…and the galaxy lost his best and brightest protégé. Just like that, and it was he who took the shot … and now, there was only Shepard.

Shepard was a nuisance. In order for the mission to succeed she had to die. No, not 'die'. _Be neutralized._

He should hate her for being in the way. He had never met someone so hard to kill, someone so hard to sabotage. Anderson, her predecessor, went down so easily, as did tens, maybe hundreds of sentient creatures in so many other situations…

He should have ripped her apart on Virmire, instead of giving in to the desire to watch the light in her eyes fade and die out. That was when he knew he could not truly call his soul his own. The lack of efficiency clashed with every action made, from finding Sovereign to that moment. And from that moment on, he felt doubt.

Doubt up to his eyes, until Sovereign enacted those necessary changes to ensure the mission's success. He had agreed at the time, whatever had to be done to complete the task at hand, to stop Shepard from interfering further.

But he felt it again, looking at everything she chose to represent. All the traits desirable in a Spectre, as well as some he found extraneous, such as whatever drove her to try and wrench him back, despite the fact she _had_ to know it was not possible.

She was not so naïve as to think he could be rescued, saved from his situation…so what was she doing with her platitudes?

The question gave him insight into how far he had fallen. _He_ had intended to protect the galaxy, to save it the only way he could…yet in doing so, was he not running the risk that he was only slowing the inevitable?

Since when did a _turian_, one of the best of them, capitulate and grovel before a conqueror? Where was turian pride and the longstanding history of not being a conquered people? And why had she not yet lacerated said pride with arguments clearly calculated to do so?

One would think the verbal assault would bring reason and logic to the fore, through the haze of indoctrination.

Had she failed to find the right words…or…by this point, did he simply not care? Had he given up his identity as a turian, as a Spectre?

If he had lost that...perhaps she had found it.

And he saw it, like blurry vision coming into focus, her reasoning, her logic, her intentions…it was all clear.

Sovereign's influence pushed him to finish, to allow Sovereign full control of the chief relay of the mass relay system. It pushed at his thoughts, as one elbowed through a crowd. He could see the _rightness_ of what he was doing; all else was passive reflection.

Or was it? His pistol was heavy in his hand.

Shepard moved out of cover, doubtless relying on her shields. She still held her shotgun, clutched at it, but not as though ready to fire it. She seemed to think she had somehow reached him.

Maybe she had, but he knew that if she was right, if he was truly indoctrinated…it did not matter if she 'reached him' or not. There was no fighting it…

…there it was again. That un-turian sentiment. That urge to belly up to the inevitable, without so much as token resistance. His brother, at Shanxi. That garrison had not bellied up; they had made the humans pry them off that forsaken chunk of rock, and at a high cost.

"Saren!" Shepard's shout cut through his thoughts like razorblades through flesh.

He looked up, still disliking the woman on principle, ready to turn and finish his task, his mission.

Sovereign was waiting.

"You can still fight them." The words were low, not shouted for all to hear, they were meant for him, and him alone.

And she believed them, truly believed her assertion. She did not _see_ the hopelessness, the _presumption_ of thinking _she_ could stop what the _Protheans_ could not.

Belly up. No resistance. Blind capitulation. Licking the Reaper's boots in hopes of survival...

For a moment he saw her, not as a human, not as an enemy, but as an equal, a fellow Spectre. "Thank you, Shepard." The words sounded strange in his ears. How long was it, since he had heard his own thoughts, his own thoughts uttered in his own voice?

He pointed the pistol beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.


	229. Sacrifice

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"Shepard, you've got the best view," Hackett's voice crackled in her radio, "do we save the _Ascension_ or focus fire on that…that _thing_?"

Shepard's heart pounded in her throat, her extremities pulsing as blood was rushed to every part of her body, carrying the endorphins and adrenaline she needed to keep going. Her mind threatened to go blank, the only reason it had not was that if it did, they were all dead. Everyone. And it would be her fault.

She swallowed as she weighed her options. There was not much to weigh, so it took seconds of real time, compared to the amount of brain power poured into the decision. It was not a decision that could be made by a human alone, because the outcome did not affect humanity alone.

As a soldier she understood collateral damage. Let the Council die in order to have the maximum amount of firepower for Sovereign's shields. They did not know what its capacity to shrug off damage was, and after the shields was that heavy plate. They needed the firepower, lots of it, if Sovereign was cutting through their ships enough for Hackett to ask for her on-the-ground opinion.

Run to fight later, or take a stand now?

1-0.

An asari would say save the Council. The Citadel was their baby, the Council their idea. They were the oldest space-faring species, and would probably argue, therefore, that they knew best. But they had not believed her about the Reapers. Still did not, as the asari councilor probably panicked at the thought of dying from an ambush they said was impossible.

1-1.

A turian would let the _Ascension_ fall to blast Sovereign full of holes. Their concept of war was total war. They did not think in the terms of acceptable losses, as humans did. It was all or nothing—they had proved it over and over again at Shangxi. There had to be few or no survivors of any attack they made. And Sovereign was the biggest threat anyone here had ever seen.

Whatever she did, she had to own her decision, own it and stand by it for the rest of her life, however long that was.

2-1.

A salarian would calculate all the risks, find the one best possible outcome, but their brains ran so much faster than her own. She had to simplify the matter. She did not hate aliens. She thought the Council was _stupid_, but did not want to sacrifice them based on personal reasons. She was not Rogers. She had sacrificed a good friend, the best friend she had, based on logic, she could sacrifice them on logic too. It was ten thousand verses…billions. Trillions.

3-1.

Udina—he _would_ elbow his way into her thought processes—would cheer for a chance to depose the Council and put a human council (or at best, a human-led Council) into power. He would have her murder them in cold blood on a normal day in order to further his personal agendas.

The thought made her sick. He would damn them all for a few months in the catbird seat.

Then he would have the gall to bitch about her making a bad choice.

3-2.

She had to make a choice.

"Shepard! We've got to save the Council!" Alenko's assertion cut through her calculating like a combat knife through ballistic gel. Alenko was politically savvy, but he was not thinking about the bigger big picture. He was thinking about the established institution. Like she would think about the Alliance in many situations. He was far-sighted enough to know that if she let the Council die and Sovereign was destroyed, she would be raked over the coals for letting the Council die—hadn't the insane ship gone down? Hadn't there been so many ships left whole to defend the _Ascension_?

Those were the questions with which she would be faced. If they saved the Council but failed to destroy Sovereign…she would also be blamed as the woman who let the Reapers annihilate the galaxy.

Still... 3-3.

"Don't be crazy!" Wrex's booming voice cut further through the ballistic gel buffering her thoughts from her present situation. "Kill the damn ship, we can always get a new Council!" Wrex had personal interests in this. The salarians cooked up the genophage; the turians used it; the Council authorized it. And his people were dying.

But Wrex was a thinker. He knew what was at stake, and that if defenses failed now, there was no fighting back. Just hiding like rabbits until the Reapers finished purging the galaxy.

4-3.

Williams would have her kill the Reaper at all costs. She had died for that very goal. Failure was spitting on her sacrifice.

5-3.

O'Conner would say the same: save as many as you can. This was one fight where taking chances, playing the odds to be an underdog was not an option.

6-3.

Fail to save the Council and anti-human sentiment would rise. She would be responsible for it.

Save the Council, and there was a distinct possibility the events of Torfan, Elysuim, Akuze, Mindoir—that they would be picnics in quiet fields compared to the carnage, loss and suffering that would ensue.

"Commander—we need a decision. We're taking a pounding, and losses are only going to climb!" Hackett's voice cut tense into her mind. Seconds to do so much reasoning. Seconds to decide the fate of the galaxy, to make a choice for every sentient out there: fight, or die.

6-4.

Shepard reached up, almost as if on autopilot. "We can't take the risk. Focus all fire on Sovereign—let's see how many holes we can punch into that synthetic bastard." The words seemed to come from a stranger, even as ice filled her veins. She could not take it back, felt the heavy, staggering weight of ten thousand lives settle on her shoulders, wrapped neatly in the packaging of necessity.

At least she had logic. But logic was not a comfort.


	230. The Calm

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"I want to make sure he's dead," Shepard announced into the ominous silence in the wake of Saren's suicide, the decision to abandon the _Destiny Ascension_, and the effective thwarting of Sovereign's hopes of activating the Citadel's mass relay functions.

Her heart pounded in her throat, her breaths came shallow and quick.

Was this it? Was their part really over? Hadn't Saren or Sovereign acting through Saren left them any final surprises? No hidden bombs? No lurking husks? No more geth? _Nothing?_ Had they really, truly, fought their way through all of Saren's army to get here…or was there, even now, a fresh attack being coordinated, despite Saren's death?

Or was it possible, was it entirely possible, that their part was…over? Just like that, and they no longer mattered in the grand scheme of things?

No one's mind had, as yet, had time to really consider the matters, to sort the data, to decide what the galaxy looked like now...and wonder what it would look like when all the major events were over. There was, however, nothing more they could do for the battle overhead—nothing, not three sapients, on foot, and without true heavy weapons.

Wrex strode over to the edge of the overlook, peering down at the crumpled form of Saren. The turian wasn't moving, and Wrex seriously doubted even Saren could survive a bullet to the head—particularly if he was the one pulling the trigger.

One didn't hear much about failed suicide attempts among turians. They were better at it, when it happened, than humans.

Wrex hit the ground sturdily after the long fall with an 'oomph!' at the impact. "Looks dead to me." But he wasn't about to take it on faith that appearances were facts. The fact was that Saren was a slippery bastard, and this whole scenario seemed _too easy_.

Frak Shepard: if she'd just let the fight break out, let the bullets fly, let winners and losers be decided in a civilized fashion he wouldn't be feeling so jumpy.

But _no_, she had to give Saren a chance to be one of the 'good' guys—to take his own life rather than end up dead and on the enemy's side. Humans. Hmph.

Shepard made to follow, but Alenko caught her shoulder. "That's the hard way." He narrowed his eyes in concentration, and wrapped his arm around hers. Then, he stepped forward, his biotic corona flaring up. Shepard uneasily followed, eyes scrunched tight.

Alenko deposited Shepard and himself on the ground in a cloud of dark energy. The first things to go on a marine—if it wasn't their back—were their knees.

"_Very_ nice," Shepard approved, with a look that was meant for him, and him alone. "I'm impressed." Especially since Alenko notoriously hated handling 'live freight' in such a manner.

It was a novel way of transport, even if she couldn't feel the tickle of dark energy through her armor and the mesh underlay. The sensation, though, was something her skin remembered. And it _was _better than jumping into the enclosure below like some kind of hero.

What was the old saying, Shepard wondered as she cautiously moved toward Saren's corpse. 'Love your knees, and they will love you back'?

She did not go within arm's reach of the body. Long experience taught her to stay back until she was certain, absolutely certain, that a downed individual had actually assumed room temperature.

Freeing her pistol, she aimed at Saren's head, letting him have two more rounds, just to be safe. She'd never known anyone to get up from a head wound, but there _were_ those who—miraculously—survived. She'd never _known_ anyone who had, but they existed.

Besides, Saren was a Spectre, a tough son of a bitch. It was better to make doubly, triply sure he really was dead. No sense getting sloppy just when things finally seemed to be winding down.

And yet it bothered her that he went down so easily. She was certain that it was Saren—not the indoctrinated puppet—who had the last words. The last act, killing himself so she would not have to fight him, waste precious time and energy, certainly belonged to the turian Spectre. It was the same as with Benezia, when she scraped together enough of herself to fight the indoctrination for a short time, the time when it mattered most that she have her own voice.

"I don't like it," Wrex grunted as Shepard stood over the body, not looking at the mangled remains of the head, but considering what the shell used to be. It was good to remember a good enemy well. Saren was, he had to admit, a good enemy. "That was my paperweight Shep—"

Shepard only had time to gasp as a biotic field grabbed her, yanking her inexorably away from the corpse. She did not have to ask what Alenko was thinking when she knocked into him—apparently, a small part of her mind noted, it was easy to get a body moving, but not so easy to stop it. Or maybe it was a psychological thing: an object in motion remained in motion until acted upon by another force. Apparently a visible solid was preferable.

The greater part of her mind watched in horror as Saren's flesh seemed to char on the bones, blue LED lights flashing out from beneath the disintegrating flesh, until only the skeleton, lit up like a holiday display, remained.

_And it got up. _Slowly, clumsily, the skeletal remains, more synthetic than organic, got to their feet, as though uncomfortable with the arrangement of its bones.

Alenko and Shepard took several steps in opposing directions, preparatory to action.

"I _knew_ it was too easy," Wrex mumbled, finally surprised by something. It was not every day one watched someone char from the inside out, only to have the apparently reanimated corpse get up to glare at you.

In all his centuries of life, this had to be a first.


	231. The Storm

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard reacted without conscious thought, the memory of Saren's words about the implants Sovereign 'gave' him filling in the gaps.

Those implants weren't just to keep the puppet under control: Sovereign had planned a fallback strategy in case his puppet failed. In case it failed to activate the Citadel, or failed to kill this pestilential human and her obsequious cohorts.

It looked at Shepard. If synthetic eyes could hold a feral glint, this pair would have. "_I am Sover_—"

Shepard, without blinking, mercilessly unloaded two bursts of shot—one of which saw the bulk of its pellets impact in the turian-husk's chest, the other of which clipped its shoulder as it jumped away and to the left. It had not stopped moving before Wrex joined in.

If it wanted to talk, let it talk: she would use the time to aim, to boost her accuracy. Even a synthetic skeleton could only take so much damage…

Whether or not this would affect the greater creature Shepard did not know, but it was best to work linearly, taking one enemy at a time. After all, if the whole Fleet overhead, all the warships in the immediate area bolstering whatever Hackett had managed to assemble, couldn't stop Sovereign…the galaxy was screwed.

Alenko, gritting his teeth, reached out for the thing, intending to hold it aloft, as he'd done other enemies, only to find that it seemed…slippery…it was not a sensation he could articulate any better for a non-biotic. The throw he used to slam it back into the ground _worked_, but it took unusual effort.

Anti-biotic shielding. Of course it would have something like that.

When the throw seemed a little lackluster—more as though Alenko had dropped laundry in a laundry hamper than tried to slam the avatar like a shoe used to strike an insect—Shepard immediately assumed this was going to be a constant lack of effectiveness.

The simple fact that Wrex did not try to do it himself was telling, though whether this was him learning from Alenko's difficulty or the situation too tense to want to heckle remained up for debate. Or it would, had anyone attention to spare for it.

"Just keep him still! Don't let him get away!" She reached for her grenade launcher, swore as her fingers brushed it—this was not a good place for grenades to be effective—then freed her rifle instead. It was not her favorite weapon, but it was better suited to the situation.

Wrex suddenly gave a bellow, adjusted his footing, and _charged_.

The bone-crunching force would have sent Alenko in full armor to the ground, leaving him dazed and confused. In this case, despite the metal skeleton, the Sovereign-avatar was plowed backward, its feet tangling up with the krogan's relentless momentum. It hit the ground when Wrex's charge lost power, only to have Wrex raise his shotgun and begin slamming the thing's ruined head with the butt end.

It was krogan ingenuity at work. If biotics failed, and bullets weren't as effective as one might hope, there remained only one option: hit it with a big stick.

The Sovereign-avatar was down but not out. With a hiss and a pulse of blue light, not unlike the electrostatic discharges of a husk, it sent Wrex staggering back, as small motors in his armor began to blow, and his shotgun all but exploded in his hands. "Shit! We've got a problem, Shepard!"

The Sovereign-avatar was on its feet in one spring-loaded motion, sharp talons raking at Wrex's face. The krogan flailed, staggered, and managed to turn a face-ripping blow into a grazing wound. Shepard did not need to see his face to know that Wrex's vision was hazing red. She'd never seen a krogan in a blood rage, but she suspected she was about to.

And that could be deadly, here, in an enclosed space with two friendlies behind him. It was hard to shoot around a berserk krogan, or so she expected.

"Alenko! Wrex! Grab him! Don't let go!" If bullets from a distance weren't working, if the thing could still get up after taking a full krogan charge, if the thing simply _wouldn't stop moving_ there was only one thing left to do.

Exhibit the reason she went dual-spec, instead of taking the Engineer's path in the N-program. When bullets failed, she had tech. When tech failed, there were bullets.

Wrex landed a biotically-backed punch, sending the Sovereign-avatar staggering back.

Alenko reached out, trying to block out distractions so he could focus on the one important thing: _keep Sovereign's avatar right where it was!_ It became easier when Wrex joined the restraining effort.

Shepard had, in a quick series of motions, shucked her weapons rack, yanked the grenade launcher off it, and popped one of the projectiles free.

"Shepard! Hurry up!" Wrex barked.

Shepard gritted her teeth and rose from her crouch, plan ready, equipment ready…she drew her field knife.

Alenko knew, from the way Shepard held her knife, that she was not going to engage the avatar hand-to-hand as a last, desperate measure. Alliance boot camp taught one how to fight with a knife. If an instructor ever saw her do _that_….

But it was this that left him as attentive as possible for some second stage in her plan.

Shepard reached the temporarily-rooted-to-the-spot avatar, and swung her blade towards its face, a blade held like an ice pick.

Sovereign's avatar fought the biotic fields restraining it, managed to knock her strike astray…

…and was unable to stop her from using her other hand to shove her grenade and a mass of coagulating omnigel under its ribcage. The omnigel acted like an adhesive, causing the grenade to 'stick'.

"Alenk—"

For the second time in twenty minutes, Shepard was jerked out of reach, only to knock into Alenko. No one had time to say anything. Alenko turned, forcing a barrier up between the avatar and his colleagues to protect them from shrapnel when Shepard's grenade exploded.


	232. Ruins

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Valen Kyrvayne stepped into the ruins of the Council Chambers, rifle at the ready, medical bag hanging from his shoulder. Eddie Lang seconded him, followed by Captain Anderson and a mixed bag of willing soldiers from the _SSV Normandy_ and C-Sec, all bent on one task.

_Find Shepard, and her team. _Most people—barring Captain Anderson—seemed more worried about Shepard, because of the three, only she was neither a krogan, nor a biotic.

Little fires burned amongst the wreckage, sending smoke to hover near the rafters, creeping towards further fuel sources. The lighting was bad, given the amount of damage to the Citadel and the council chambers, but the rescue team could remedy this somewhat with the powerful lights they carried.

"Be careful," Garrus Vakarian rumbled from behind. "We don't know what kind of damage was done when that thing collided with the tower."

Vakarian was not someone who ought to lecture about being careful, from all accounts. In fact, Valen had expected the former C-Sec officer to be up front and on the move already, instead of just taking in the ruined scenery.

"She might not have that kind of time," Valen retorted, feeling as though Vakarian needled him needlessly. Of course, Vakarian had no way of knowing why he, Valen, was so insistent on coming in the first place. But it was important. Very important—and if the danger of structural problems wasn't so real, he'd have brought Fitz in an attempt to sniff Shepard out.

Fitz caught her in the middle of a crowded place. Surely finding her here would be easier, with fewer smells…but cats weren't known as trackers. And Fitz was getting old.

Vakarian tapped Valen's shoulder with the back of his hand. "Shepard's motto is '_don't do it fast, do it right_'. She wouldn't want us killing her team, trying to get to her." Several others who knew Shepard nodded agreement, though no one seemed to like the idea of going too slowly, lest she be in a real jam. And given Shepard's reputation…she probably was, though it was no longer a joking matter.

Valen ignored this, starting forward—though with some amount of caution. She had to be alive—though upon reaching a point where he could see up to the council chamber, his heart sank. Heavy wreckage and chunks of the building itself lay scattered with all the care of a dropped deck of playing cards.

Very carefully, he wound his way up to the vista occupied by those speaking before the Council, but could go no further. The vista had collapsed, angling itself like a ramp. In the atrium below lay a smoking husk, blackened and dead, and many, many holes in the walls. Shotgun marks, strange scrapes on the walls, singed marks on the turf now beaten flat by many feet, but neither Shepard, nor her lieutenant, nor the krogan supposedly with her were there.

Nor was Saren—though Valen felt an odd twinge as he looked back at the blackened husk. Whatever had happened to Saren wasn't his business—he was here for Shepard. Dead or alive—though he hoped alive.

"We've got lifesigns!" Eddie called, his voice higher than usual from relief. "Very faint, but we've got them!"

"How many?" Capt. Anderson's voice demanded.

"Two."

Two out of three.

Valen withdrew, inwardly hoping that one sign was Shepard. He couldn't say he hoped the krogan was all right—but _she'd_ saved him from a very gruesome death at a young age. He owed it to her to find her, if he could. "Just the two?" he asked, as the team drew nearer, medical personal on hand. A large sheet of metal, probably from _Sovereign_ lay wedged at an angle by the wall, creating a small cavity, covered by rubble and more shrapnel.

"Look, the scanner's not working too well, I think it's this crap," Eddie answered, motioning to the metal. "And unless we want to crush whoever's down there…we're careful."

Careful they were. And after what felt like days—though only hours—Eddie ended up with the honor of pulling the last plate aside, exposing those trapped to the lights wielded by the rescue crew…

Valen would have pursed his lips if he'd had any. Within the cavity, bruised, squinting, and looking extremely woebegone were the krogan, and Shepard's lieutenant.

"Where is she?" Capt. Anderson asked, helping the lieutenant out of the small space. He lurched, making Valen suspect broken ribs, at least.

The lieutenant gave Capt. Anderson a look that summed it up. An expression of horror, and numb disbelief.

"She can't be." Valen growled.

Vakarian shot him a warning look. The lieutenant simply closed his eyes, but his jaw tightened. Valen had the sense that—if the man had been in any condition—the lieutenant would have tried to plant his fist in Valen's face. But he was in no condition, and simply tried to block the horrible truth—much as he didn't want to believe it.

Because obviously Shepard's loss was horrible. Even the krogan looked disturbed, once having looked about and ascertaining Shepard was not on a stretcher somewhere, prepped for travel. Unlike the lieutenant, the krogan merely limped as though achy, but otherwise uninjured. Krogan were tough—what had Shepard done to get one on her side?

Capt. Anderson intervened, patting the biotic on the back, and making to guide him towards the medical personnel.

Valen turned on his heel. He hadn't seen what they saw, and was therefore disinclined to simply give up. If all he could do was find her cold dead body, he'd do it. She deserved more than to rot unlooked-for under some slab.

"No…we find her first," the lieutenant grit out, through whatever pain he was in.

"That could take hours…you're not exactly…"

"You heard the man," the krogan growled. And while medical personnel might feel confident in putting a human out with sedatives against his will, they weren't dumb enough to try it with a krogan.


	233. Sunlight

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

She was home, on Mindoir before everything fell apart, lying in a field. Sunlight gleamed down at her, turning the insides of her eyelids fiery red, the light filtered, diffused by her own blood. She could smell that mix of grass and plant life, of dirt and damp, a mix of scents only a few places in the galaxy had. How many times had she wandered off to be outside, to enjoy the sun or watch the clouds? Especially after very long days…but it was usually evening, then, once all the work and chores were done. Before she had to start her homework.

Right now, though, it was the height of afternoon. The sun had finished its surge of energy to bring about morning, but had not yet begun to tire or sag on towards evening. Now it was strong, indomitable, and the light poured down like rain.

Opening her eyes, she squinted into the light, brilliant, eye-searing overhead. Too bright to look at, potent, unfiltered. Pure. It was a bad idea to look at it, her eyes would hate her for it later, but for a few moments she could see the burning star as a golden coin in the endless blue sky.

Someone shouted for her, she could not tell who…it was a male voice, she was fairly certain of that, but it was indistinct. She was not sure she actually heard her name, but she instinctively knew that was what the shouted word was.

Caught between irritation at the interruption, and mildly curious as to who could be hollering for her, she got up, brushing grass from her shirt and jeans, picking it out of her hair.

Something was not right. She was short of breath, as though getting over a nasty cold, or as if she was in the grips of one.

Oh green grassy earth, she could _not _be getting sick. It did not happen often, but when it did, she got _sick_.

She stopped walking, the world around her flickering. She wanted to collapse to the ground as the world seemed to rotate ninety degrees. For a moment her surroundings were full of red light, broken objects, fracture lines like broken glass over everything. Nothing but wreckage and ruin.

No, she was here, in the field, alone…and suddenly it was a bad thing. She was alone, all alone, in the middle of a wide open place. She was not agoraphobic, but something about this whole scenario left her afraid. She should not be alone…_that_ was what frightened her. Something, someone was missing.

A voice, hoarse and wheezing seemed to echo in the open space, not an appeal for help, but an appeal to someone, anyone who might hear it, to call back and alleviate the frightening sense of aloneness.

But no answer came. Fear flooded her veins, turning her blood to ice water. She began to walk, it did not matter which direction, everything looked the same on all sides. This was not home, she was not safe, in fact she was…

…painfully vulnerable.

Smoke, she smelled smoke, and the nauseating smell of burnt flesh. The wind died, leaving her shivering, even though it was not cold. Adrenaline dumped into her blood as she slowly turned around, looking for the plume. There had to be a plume of smoke.

Over all, sunlight beat down, turning her hair hot against her scalp.

"_Shepard!" _

Not Jalissa, _Shepard_. Her heart sped up painfully, struggling to beat. The resonant tone was alien to her…but not so alien she could not find some explanation of it.

She turned, watched smoke billowing up from the distance. Too much smoke to be the homestead…this was not Mindoir. There was no homestead. From here it looked like a ship…a painfully familiar ship…

She screamed, staggering backwards but keeping her footing as something slammed into her, sunk in deep causing ripples of pain to spread from the epicenter in her chest. A knife, like a fragment of shrapnel, protruded from her chest, crimson blood leaking freely from it, staining her faded blue blouse. Every breath was painful, shallower breathing did not help…she could not pull the fragment out, her hands and brain had disconnected.

Her head pounded with reverberating pain, her neck ached. For moment she saw, as if overlaid over her eyes, the scene of red light, of broken surroundings, the fracture lines, and a glint of something gray, metallic…and then there was only the field.

"_Shepard. Answer me!"_

Cybernetic blue eyes bored into hers out of a metallic face. A turian face, but skeletal, watched her, raised a bony hand tipped in talons, twisted the dagger, then pushed her back.

She hit the ground, pain running up and down the length of her back. She twitched, spasmed. She tried to move, to reach up, disengage the knife. She could not do either: paralyzing pressure set in, and any attempt at motion cause the knife to shift.

She watched the turian dissolve into black ash, leaving her painfully alone. Not even the presence of an enemy to give her the sense of not being the only living thing in the entire world, the entire galaxy.

Sunlight beat down on her, pinned as she was, exposed. Her skin heated past endurance, sweat sliding down it.

Why was she the only one alive? Why was she the only one here? And if she was not, truly was not…why was there no one to save her? To stop the bleeding? Or, at worst, put her out of her own misery?

More voices, crowding cacophonous in her head. For a moment she thought it was the Cipher, but it was the wrong kind of noise.

She could not do this…

…she could not let go. She had survived too much…

The sunlight vanished as she let out a strangled gasp, the best she could manage. The sunlight was gone, and the ruins of the Citadel Council Chambers came sharply into focus.

"_Shepard_!"

…he was a turian.


	234. Wreckage

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Valen Kyrvayne slipped away from the rescue team, several of whom were trying to argue that the lieutenant and the krogan couldn't really help right now—not when they were in such a battered condition themselves. Someone must have pointed out something along the lines of 'Shepard wouldn't want', because the lieutenant interrupted sharply, angrily, though Valen didn't catch the exact words as he picked his way forward.

The place was fairly clear of geth, unlike the rest of the Citadel. Little more than a small detachment to accompany the husk-thing he suspected was Saren Arterius. Or what was left of him—though how he'd gotten into _that_ state, Valen couldn't guess.

The long arm severed from Sovereign lay across the ground, surrounded by the thickest of of the wreckage. "Shepard?" He called, hoping she was conscious. "Shepard!"

Nothing. No answer. It was too much to hope for one—it was _not_ too much to hope she was just pinned, out of sensory range….was it? Certainly it was optimistic, but it was better than giving up, or convincing himself he was looking for a dead body.

"Shepard! Answer me!"

Something shifted. A soft click, like rubble moving. Valen shouldered his rifle as other voices began calling for Shepard. Apparently not everyone was convinced she was dead. Or they were hoping that by denying the possibility, they could make the denial the truth.

As he rounded the thick end of the severed appendage he heard it. A gasp, a grunt, then a cough which might have been an attempt to call out. "Shepard?" he moved further.

There she was. Her eyes half open, breathing shallow, only yards from the metallic scrap which might feasibly interfere with Eddie's scanner. The shrapnel pinning her face up lay flat, as if she had landed on her stomach, then rolled to scuttle backward. The heavy debris atop it kept her both short of breath and unable to call out. Unable to free herself, it was all she could do to wait, suspended in pain and troubled breathing.

"Shepard! I found her!" Valen called, hurrying over. "Hey…I've found you…it's okay…" he knelt, tapping gently on her helmet, which bore deep scores. If she hadn't had it on, he would have bet she wouldn't have lived. One or two of the cracks looked bad. Beneath it, bruises mingled with soot and concrete dust on that part of her face that he could see. But her eyes opened, vividly bright. "We're going to get you out," but looking at the wreckage pinning her, he was sure it was unwise to move it himself—not at risk of shifting the rubble's weight, or causing it to fall towards her.

Some of those rocks looked pretty heavy. It was probably just her armor, and the metal plate which protected her from getting crushed. The plate had not landed flat on her, with all the rock piled atop it in an orderly fashion. The plate had probably struck her as she scuttled to avoid it, dragging her until the rubble fell, pinning it to the ground and her with it. Fortunately for her, the plate tilted off to one side, but with enough weight to keep her from wriggling loose.

Shepard nodded, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. Unable to think of anything else—aside from calling out again, more sharply this time and with the adjective 'alive', Valen groped under the plate's raised end, finding Shepard's shotgun, and her hand still clasped around it. Her fingers immediately gripped at his talons.

"We're going to get you out of here," Valen promised, ignoring the discomfort of his current situation. "Just show me a little bit of fortitude…yeah?" he made it an encouraging question.

Shepard tried to smile, but it looked as though she were trying not to cry. "Alenko…Wr…" she coughed, out of breath.

"Easy…" Valen prompted as Eddie appeared, having picked a way around, with Captain Anderson hot on his heels. "They're alive…fine compared to you…"

"Don't…do stuff by halves…" Shepard managed the feeble joke, but not without cost. Her eyes suddenly unfocused.

"Shepard?" Valen urgently tapped her helmet again.

"Is she okay?" Alenko demanded, hanging from Wrex's shoulder.

Shepard's quick intake of breath at the familiar voice was accompanied by tears leaving tracks down from her eyes. "She's pinned good…" Wrex rumbled. "…nothing a careful lift can't fix. I'll move the plate. You pull her out."

Alenko moved laboriously to a position several feet back from where Shepard lay, one that gave him room to maneuver. Whatever was wrong with him physically had not interfered with his biotics.

"On three," Alenko announced, as Captain Anderson and Garrus silenced dissent with assurances that Shepard's cohorts—being biotics—were more likely to free her without further damage.

"Fortitude," Shepard murmured, as she let go of Valen's hand, so he could back away. In a single moment, Wrex lifting the pinning plate, Alenko pulling her from underneath it, she was free, coughing and sputtering as the medical personnel swarmed like overanxious bees.

"You okay?" Alenko asked, his expression drawn.

Shepard nodded. "Fine…you?"

Valen walked over to Shepard, keeping pace alongside her stretcher.

"Thanks Valen," Shepard said, as loudly as she dared.

"You're welcome." But the thanks made him uncomfortable. "It's…the least I could do."

Shepard understood the awkward words for their proper meaning. _Thank you_. "You're welcome. What about civilians?"

"We're only just starting to look for them," Garrus announced.

"Well…" Shepard looked for the source of Garrus's voice, but ceased when he didn't immediately make himself visible. "…what are you waiting for?"

Garrus gave a short laugh, as if at some inside joke. "Yes ma'am."

"I'll be fine," Shepard assured Valen, who was intent on hovering.

Valen made to protest, but stopped himself. He nodded, and followed Garrus at a trot. She was right. She was alive, she was found. But others were not—and it was her duty to them not to take manpower away from the search unnecessarily.


	235. Hey Dad

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The Wards still smoked and burned three days after the battle between Shepard, Sovereign_,_ and Saren. Oh, and Alenko and Wrex, Garrus corrected himself—hard to understand how he could forget Wrex, when the lower atrium in the Council Chambers was peppered with his shotgun pellets.

But the Council Chambers was the last place anyone worried about, with the Council dead. The geth had poured into the Citadel, wreaking havoc and massacring everyone and everything in sight. Blood spattered the walls, bodies littered the corridors, sometimes all one could see was a piece here and another piece some feet in another direction.

It reminded Garrus why he hated computers, but that was not the driving thought as he led his small band of C-Sec officers into the warzone of the Lower Wards. With Shepard still under medical restriction—and looking as though she belonged there—he'd gone back to what he knew best: C-Sec. And right now, those members of C-Sec still alive and at liberty were struggling to count their dead or find the missing.

In the time since rejoining his old coworkers, Garrus learned what happened in those final hours, between Saren's arrival, and Shepard's. Shepard had, somehow, left word that things might get _bad_. That she had no authority to _order_ anyone to do _anything, _but that if C-Sec loved their jobs, and their people, and wanted to live, they'd at the very least put themselves on alert. An opinion reiterated—according to Eddie Lang—by Capt. Anderson.

So they put themselves on alert—full weapons and armor until the issue was resolved.

It was one of the smartest things they had ever done. As soon as C-Sec realized the Citadel was being invaded, they were ready, not to repel the geth, but at least not caught flat-footed. Capt. Anderson was released from lockdown and ended up in with C-Sec while the crisis lasted. C-Sec had done their best to push back the geth, but had done better than their best to save as many civilians as possible—by retreating into the Wards, where more defensible locations could be found.

Unfortunately, as damage to the Citadel mounted—particularly once the Alliance opened fire on _Sovereign_—the Wards became more like clusters of prisons. Small places within the wreckage where concrete facades added by the current tenants became even smaller, trapping those survivors huddled within.

Which was why what was left of C-Sec was working double-time now, bolstered and aided by the ground forces of the Systems Alliance.

But that was not the only reason for Garrus' presence. Investigator Antilles Vakarian was not listed among the dead. The last anyone ever saw of the old man was him opening fire on a horde of geth as he retreated with a small herd of human survivors into the wards, cut off from the rest of his group and shouting for the team to get back and do what they needed to do. He'd take care of the civilians.

And then nothing.

Garrus would never have claimed to _hate_ his father—though admittedly constantly being in the old turian's shadow was not a comfortable place to be. "C-Sec!" he called, his resonant voice carrying into the ruined corridor. It was, he recalled, once a line of low-class shops on the less-seedy side of the district. Cheap knockoffs and imitations, mostly. "Sing out if you can hear us!"

The Williams-ism jumped from his mouth before he realized to whom the words belonged. He'd never asked Shepard how she'd managed to make her decision, Williams or Alenko. He didn't think he'd ever have the nerve—not because he was afraid of making her angry, but because he knew the loss of Williams went deep. The three humans shared a unique camaraderie, and to lose that…

"…here!" he almost missed hoarse, faint cry, muffled by broken rubble.

"I've got a voice!" He raised his omni-tool, momentarily forgotten as he'd ruminated over the events leading up to this search with a fine toothed…comb. That was what it was, _comb_—because most humans had hair and needed to keep it orderly. "I have heat signs! Biotics!"

One of his two biotics, on loan from the Alliance, hurried over, beginning discussion on how best to move the heavy rubble without collapsing the rest. "This is C-Sec! We're going to get you out!" Garrus shouted into the nearest opening he could find.

"…careful boy!"

Garrus blinked owlishly at the crack from which the now familiar, if somewhat squished-sounding voice issued. "Be careful, now—sounds like they don't have much room," he relayed as the two biotics trooped up. With great care, they moved the largest piece of rubble, shifting it to one side, careful to dislodge nothing else.

Relieved babble broke out, human voices, soft and squeaky with relief. Garrus leaned over the opening, not yet wide enough for anyone but a very small human to get out. "Get the kids out…go on…" Antilles Vakarian's voice rumbled. "Just do it! Go on. We've got kids coming up!" But again, the voice sounded as though volume was difficult to muster.

Garrus stifled the urge to call out and ask if Antilles was all right—he was alive, and therefore fine. Garrus knew the answer he'd get already.

Four children were boosted out of the pit. It looked as though the floor had collapsed, then the rubble surrounding fell across the sink like a roof. After a few more minutes the adult humans could began creeping out, and when the last one stood safely with the rescue party, Garrus slithered into the foul-smelling hole, and deep darkness.

Antilles Vakarian lay pinned by a large slab of stone, the reason for his trouble mustering vocal volume. His eyes were closed. Garrus clambered halfway to the surface, calling his biotics, before returning to kneel by his father's head. "Hey Dad." He touched the older turian's brow, ignoring sticky blood, what Shepard would call 'scuff' damage, and a thick layer of dust.


	236. Smiling

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Capt. David Anderson sat near Commander Shepard's bedside. It was a post he took up gladly, partly because it left him with time to think. It was over, but it wasn't. Sovereign—and Saren—were gone, but who knew how many more Reapers were out there? Waiting. Or maybe they weren't, and were heading for populated space the slow way.

And the hero who'd foisted this delay on their synthetic-supremacy plans looked like a broken doll.

Well, at least she was breathing on her own, without the aid of tubes or machines. Visitors had steadily traipsed through to see her, until the medical facility had declared visiting hours over—though he'd cleverly gotten around this. Perhaps because he was her commanding officer, perhaps because she had no one else to stand in place of her family, he'd gotten around it.

It was hard, watching the others come through, human and non-human alike. He wondered vaguely whether it was harder for the others, to see her hurt like this, then have to go out and do what needed doing—mostly because they knew if she wasn't out of it and on doctors' orders, she'd be out there too, digging out survivors, filling any remaining geth full of bullet holes.

Marine things.

As he looked at the white face, livid with bruises, an image of a wounded Shepard some years younger swam before his mind's eyes. Broken ankle, doped on painkillers and trying not to show it, bracing for her first time being fed to the media. She'd been plucky then—just plain plucky. You noticed her not because of any outstanding feature—unless you got close enough to see her eyes—or because she overtly drew attention to herself. You noticed her because the air around her hummed with determination, the undying, unquenchable determination to be the best at what she did without the benefit of any special affinity. She'd get there by sweat, blood and tears. The old-fashioned way.

Well, she'd certainly paid in all three. And she was the first human Spectre because of them. But somehow, the honor didn't seem to walk hand in hand with her usual desire to be best at what she did. He wasn't sure she'd want to _stay_ with the Spectres. Not after the circus she'd been performing in for the past months. Not after the human vs. nonhuman politicking. The interference. The hobbling of her investigations—everything anyone could contrive to slow her down, reroute her, or stonewall her.

So it was a pity the Alliance still needed their Spectre. Mostly because she'd accept the duty quietly, however irksome, painful, or troublesome she found it. At the very least, she'd find solace in going after the Reapers, having a serious task upon which to bend her mind.

Which made him smile, because he knew _exactly_ how she felt.

Shepard shifted, her breath shuddering. For a moment Anderson debated calling for the nurse, until he realized she was crying in her sleep. Which was troubling to witness. Almost as though he'd walked in on something intensely personal, private. Well, you couldn't be strong all the time, and Shepard definitely put forth a good front. It stood to reason she'd have to find some way to vent—even if she wasn't aware she was doing it. Anderson pulled out his handkerchief, a mess from the past several days, from soot and smoke and trouble. He put it back, picked up the edge of her sheet and very carefully sopped up the tears, though her complexion remained blotchy, an unflattering red.

Shepard's eyes half opened, though they remained unfocussed. Her gaze rose, and it took Anderson a moment to realize she didn't really see him, she was clearly sound asleep and dreaming, but the dream had bled over into reality. Fresh tears crept into her eyes. "I'm sorry…" she whispered, her voice dry, as though she were appealing to some implacable force. "…so sorry…"

Anderson slipped off his chair, to kneel at her low bedside, uncertain of what to do, but certain nonetheless that he ought to do _something_. Because the Shepard looking at him—looking but not seeing—didn't look like a thirty year old woman. "For what?" he asked softly.

She swallowed, blinking, but again, her eyes only half-opened. "…that I couldn't save you…"

Anderson reached over, resting his hand on her temple. Shepard's eyes closed, more tears falling. He thought he knew what this was about. "You did what you had to do." Surely the deaths she'd seen would weigh heavy on her. They weighed heavily on everyone.

She shook her head. "…I shouldn't have run…I should have gone back…"

Anderson winced mentally. He should have gone back, too, nearly, what? Fourteen years ago, now? Fifteen? Back to the very worst day of her life.

Awkwardly, he'd never had a daughter, he smoothed her hair. "You did the right thing…baby." He sounded like a bad actor in a b-movie and winced. "You did the right thing….and we're proud of you." She had. And he was. Surely her real father would be.

He wouldn't pretend they were ever very close, but he was proud of her. She'd done what no one else could have. She'd done everything he couldn't.

Shepard sniffled, swallowing visibly.

Anderson recognized this as the real waking and withdrew back to his chair. Shepard shifted, groaned, then opened her eyes. They remained a little unfocussed, but when she looked over and saw him she saw _him_, and not the phantom of her father. "Hey," she breathed, pain searing through her.

"Hey. How're you doing?" Anderson asked.

"I hurt…but I'm okay…"

"You sure?" _He_ wouldn't have used the word 'okay' to describe her condition.

"For a moment…I saw _them_…" And their faces were so clear; for once, Jeb Shepard had not looked like a burned marshmallow.

Anderson didn't move. "What were they doing?" he knew, this time, who 'they' were.

Shepard sighed, a sound containing immeasurable pain and immeasurable relief. "Smiling."


	237. Heal

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Shepard swallowed as she watched Alenko limp into the hallway in which she stood. The injured marines were adamant on following the medical advice that they start moving around, to aid the healing. However, Shepard had given Alenko a wide berth since they were pulled out of the wreckage. Many things echoed too loudly in her mind, driving her to solitude and to silence.

"Hey."

She looked so frail in the sky blue scrubs, as though she was swimming in them. True, they were a few sizes too big, but at least she looked comfortable. As comfortable as she could be in something that was not Alliance standard issue.

"Hey," Shepard responded, feeling the urge to cry welling up in her throat.

Alenko joined her, looking out the window. He knew why she was avoiding him. She'd made the hard choice, a choice he'd advised against at the time. It was the _right_ choice, if not the noble one. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, she had made the right call: to save all the firepower the Alliance had to hit Sovereign, because no one knew about its shields or defenses.

The Council, as important as they were, were still just three people, even with the hundreds…thousands?...on the _Destiny Ascension_. And she had ruled that those thousands, just like her life, were expendable if it meant the trillions left would not have to face the Reapers _now_, unprepared and unready.

For Shepard the weight of the dead hung heavy across her shoulders. Time and time again she replayed the scenario, wondering if she had missed, somehow, a way to save the _Destiny Ascension_, to win without the massive losses sustained. The weight of guilt was suddenly supplanted by a warm, heavy hand coming to rest upon her shoulder, squeezing gently.

Shepard bowed her head, her jaw trembling. She'd felt shattered ever since Valen found her, pinned like a butterfly. It was like Virmire all over again.

"You made the right call." With Shepard's composure so broken, he did not need any extraordinary powers of perception to see what she was feeling. Or to know what she was really afraid of.

She wasn't afraid of the Reapers. Sovereign's destruction proved they weren't invincible, which gave the marine and the nerd within her reasons to hope and to remain defiant of the supposed 'inevitable end'. Or the geth—again, just _machines_. She did not _look forward_ to it, but nor did she fear the impending second-guessing by others of her decisions. The slow, methodical picking apart of every action she took from start to finish. She was not afraid of the diplomatic fallout, that she as a Spectre had sacrificed the Council—the one body to whom she was accountable—for a killing blow against Sovereign.

She was afraid her decision, based on logic and the knowledge that she had one chance, and only one chance to make the right decision, had damned her. Had somehow driven him away. Afraid that now that there was finally a _future _for them, and for humanity…that she would find herself facing the future alone again.

"Did I?" Her words were so hoarse Alenko almost missed them. "I let them die…sacrificed them for a killing blow I didn't even know would work."

"Yeah, you did." Alenko shifted so he could wrap his arms around Shepard's shoulders. For a moment he was worried she might pull away, but she did not, though she remained standing fairly stiffly. But she didn't pull away. "But you're not the one who'd have damned the galaxy for the noble choice," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. "It's like Wrex said: it's why you're the CO…and I'm not. You can make the hard choices."

Tears dripped from Shepard's eyes. It felt good to hear words of reassurance from someone who was _there. _She shifted, so she could see his expression, and found neither loathing, nor disappointment that she had somehow fallen short of expectation. Just the usual gentleness, and something deeper. Something that made humans human.

"Stay with me, Shepard." Alenko whispered.

It was an encouragement, that she shouldn't let herself slip beneath the surface and drown in the lake of despair and fear which ran so deep. It was an invitation. It meant he was not walking away. She did not have to either. It was a request, now after all the energy he'd spent tracking her down so he could catch up with her.

It was a question about the future, whatever that was. A future that required consultation of a second party, because the road stretching out ahead was no longer a road for one person.

Shepard twisted the rest of the way about, prompting Alenko to loosen his grip so she could stand facing him. "Can you live with me? With my choice?" It was an expression of deep fear; she would have only asked it of one person—the one who meant the most to her.

"You made the right choice. But it was a duty call. It doesn't….it doesn't affect _us_." It didn't. Not when he knew he would have frozen, with life and death in either hand, and a choice to make, with two people yelling conflicting advice into his ears.

Shepard buried her face in his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him as best she could, her weight sagging against him. Shepard struggled to find the right words, trying not to choke on her tears now of grief and relief. "Thank you." She could not imagine a universe without Alenko in it.

"I'm with you, Jalissa. On the line, or off it." A knot in his chest Alenko had not noticed unknotted at this exchange as he smoothed her hair, for once pulled back in a ponytail, instead of the tight, regulation bun. He had always feared that 'losing' her would mean she had died.

The idea of losing her while she was still alive was…unbearable.

And for both of them, the wounds began to heal.


	238. Drool

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Dr. Chakwas was used to the marines on her crew moving around. Nervous marines were like nervous cats: they refused to stay where you put them. So when she discovered Shepard missing from her bed in the middle of the night, Dr. Chakwas worried less than the doctor who was actually _looking_ for Shepard. "I wouldn't worry about the Commander, Dr. Barbalacci," Dr. Chakwas began, but Dr. Barbalacci was so worried about 'misplacing' Shepard—as though the woman was a pair of keys, or a comm-link—that Dr. Chakwas doubted the other woman heard a word.

"What's the matter?" Liara entered the ward from the other room, where the doctors rested in shifts, looking a little bleary, but rapidly waking up.

"Shepard's gone for a nighttime stroll," Dr. Chakwas answered blandly.

Liara sighed—that was one of Shepard's less amusing habits, but one she'd learned to deal with. It wasn't only Shepard. Even Lt. Moreau would get up in the middle of his sleep-shift and hobble around the mess once or twice before going back to bed. Alenko took laps around the cargo bay. Williams had done a full lap around the entire ship. Marines prowled—shocking that Dr. Barbalacci seemed unaware of it, but the woman's distress was genuine. "I'll go find her, don't worry, Dr. Barbalacci. I'm sure the Commander is all right."

Of course the Commander was all right. In fact, Liara would have put money down, as she poured herself a mug of tea before leaving the ward, that Shepard hadn't left the immediate area. Marines might make antsy patients, but Shepard knew she was hurt, and wasn't going to risk a longer stay in medical lockdown by doing stupid things.

But nighttime wandering was a hard habit to break. So, feeling vaguely like a mother hen in search of chicks—to use the earthy human metaphor—Liara stepped into the hall.

Part of her wondered if Dr. Ross would be missing Alenko, when he inevitably checked to make sure all _his _patients were accounted for. It would not surprise Liara to find one with the other—though no one else was to know about this non-surprise.

-J-

Alenko had not expected to run out of steam halfway through his nighttime walk—he used the term 'walk' loosely; 'nighttime _shuffle_' was more accurate. The body healed slower and slower, and while he refused to write anything off to 'getting old' he couldn't deny he'd never been this badly hurt before.

But he was alive. And that was a place to start. And so he walked the corridors when he woke up in the middle of the night—usually from a nightmare about Sovereign's shrapnel coming down on his and Shepard's heads. He couldn't exactly get into the other ward, to make sure she was still there, sleeping and whole, so he walked to work off the worry.

But he'd have liked to check. To leave a gentle kiss on her cheek or temple, and wonder if the gesture crept softly into her dreams. It was with this rather sentimental thought that he'd sat down to take a breather. And once he leaned back, letting his head droop against the back of the padded bench, he'd drifted off to sleep.

-J-

This was where Shepard found him when she came toddling out of her ward some twenty minutes later. Simulated moonlight poured in from the windows, painting the dim corridor in soft shades of blue-black and blue-white. And there sprawled Alenko, having slipped sideways like a coat draped forgotten across the couch, one leg hooked over its arm as he, sleeping, sought to stop the twist and pinch of muscles in his back, the other foot flat on the floor.

Shepard bit her lip as she tiptoed over, her sock-feet making no noise on the floor. She'd had only one opportunity to really watch him sleep—and at that time her mind was filled with thoughts of Ilos, and impending doom, galactic-size problems in a human-sized head.

Now was different, and she could admire the sleep softened features, though she did question his choice of places to take a nap. Stifling a smile, Shepard gently ran her fingers though his hair, pushing it out of his face before placing a kiss on his cheekbone, feather light so as not to wake him.

_I love you_, she thought, before standing up, and walking over to the cushioned chair, made in the same fashion as the couch. She settled on the imitation-leather- really-plastic upholstery. A soft sigh and within a few moments she too, dropped off to sleep, knees crossed, looking as though she was merely thinking.

-J-

Liara needed only to follow the corridor before she caught the soft drift of sleeping humans, thoughts humming like night music in the background. Soft, almost indistinct, but recognizable if one took a moment to listen. She saw Shepard first, sitting at the end of the hall, her head having fallen forward, chin nearly resting on her collar bones.

As Liara came down the hall, she spotted Alenko, sprawling on the couch. Where she found one, she found the other. And there was really no sense in waking them. This corridor didn't really _go _anywhere—not quickly enough to be used frequently. Quietly, Liara went back to the ward, retrieved a pair of blankets—she was not going to risk waking a marine in the middle of a nap—and returned.

She tucked the ends behind Shepard's shoulders, making the Commander look like an invalid—or certainly more like one than Shepard would have wanted to appear.

It was only as Liara shook the blanket over Alenko's prone form that she saw it. Liara bit her lip, glancing over at Shepard. Yes, they made a splendid couple. Their drift changed to something harmonious when they were together and knew they were together.

But it was very funny to think Shepard was willing to share a pillow with a man who drooled in his sleep.


	239. Old Acquaintances

"Careful Shepard," Wrex rumbled as Shepard hefted herself over fallen wreckage of the ruined Citadel.

Shepard glanced back, wincing as she did so, while trying not to show it. "Careful Wrex—or I might think you start to care."

Wrex grunted, but it might have passed for a laugh. "What's your story?" he demanded of Alenko, who ambled along with him.

"My story?" Alenko grimaced. "We're marines—this is what we do."

"Uh-huh….right." Wrex mercilessly slapped Alenko across the back. Alenko grunted, pursing his lips but gave no other sign as to how much having Wrex slap him across the back _hurt_. "You sure it's not got something to do with _that_?" Wrex jerked his chin towards Shepard, who finally managed to surmount the chunk of rubble she'd bent herself to scaling, and now stood, breathing hard.

Alenko knew this was Wrex pushing buttons, so rather than answer that question or admire the view from down here—of Shepard, not Wrex (the thought made him shudder)—he snorted. "Haven't you ever done something stupid for a girl?" He usually wouldn't apply the word 'girl' to Shepard...but this wasn't a usual situation—it hadn't been a usual situation since Eden Prime.

Besides, with Shepard's admission of having been called every name in the book at one point or another and her genuine toughness—something that transcended the physical—she didn't care _what_ adjective to denote 'female' he used.

"Hmph. No."

"Uh-huh. Right." The sound of Wrex's quiet chuckle, as Alenko heave himself up the rubble to join Shepard, disappeared under a bark of laughter from Shepard—one she hadn't excepted, given the way she involuntarily reached to press a hand to her aching abdominal muscles.

Shepard, for her part, intended to make good use of getting free of the medical bay, even though by now the un-marine-like wish to just curl up somewhere and moan about how much she ached had fermented to the point of making this outing seem…stupid. Pointless.

Well, it wasn't. And if there was any more shooting, there were Wrex and Alenko, whose biotics would be just the thing to save her bacon. Ignoring the drifting conversation between 'the boys', Shepard squinted at the moving shapes up ahead.

And then laughed, so abruptly, it sent a shock of pain through her torso.

On the ground one of the marines turned. "Shepard!"

Shepard scuttled down the rubble blocking progress, to find Capt. Ludmilla Robbins striding towards her. It brought back memories. "Ma'am!" Shepard saluted crisply.

"Don't play coy," Robbins grinned wolfishly as she saluted back. "You're been stirring up a galaxy-size pot of trouble—what'd I tell you about learning how to take vacations in inhabited places? Look at this mess!"

Shepard turned to see Alenko sliding down the rubble and her stomach dropped. Behind Alenko was…Wrex. "Yeah," Shepard's mouth continued without the permission of her brain, which was too bogged down by wondering whether Wrex and Robbins would have another fight—seeing as the last time they came face-to-face it was more like boot-to-face.

Wrex changed his habits _very_ slowly; he might take a lady marine's boot to his face rather personally. More personally than any verbal potshot.

"…but you know, maybe some drapes, maybe a rug to cover the weapon-scoring…this is Lt. Alenko, my arguable Alliance Liaison."

"I've heard." Alenko and Robbins saluted, then Robbins shook his hand. "Here's a tip, El-Tee: if you're thinking about staying out of trouble, stay away from Shepard. It's contagious. If you're thinking about keeping Shepard out of trouble, bring your lunch. Or better yet, popcorn: it's a lost battle…what the _hell_ is _that_?" Robbins asked, her shrewd eyes ceasing to scrutinize Alenko's face to fall on the sliding rubble and clicking armor.

"This is…" Shepard began.

Robbins stepped past Shepard.

"She's mean," Alenko muttered, though his tone indicated this was a compliment.

"Yeah…and has a long memory…"

Alenko puzzled over this before the impact of this meeting caught up with him. He'd only ever heard about the barfight between Wrex and Shepard's former CO once or twice. Now he understood how such a thing could happen.

Robbins stood at the ready, eyeing Wrex, who stood equally at the ready, eyeing her.

"Name's Wrex," Wrex grunted, in case the topic had not come up previously. He positively oozed animosity.

Robbins exuded attitude of her own, and both nonparticipant marines were sure Robbins would fight and win _again _if the krogan wanted to dance. "Last I checked your name was _mud_, but I'll make a note."

"You're getting old, Marine. Still breaking up fights?" Wrex rumbled.

"Nah, I passed the torch. Now I just shut big mouths." For a very tense moment the krogan and the marine stood radiating their respective auras, before Wrex have his usual 'hmph' of amusement and Robbins cracked a smile. "Name's Robbins." She held out her hand.

"I like Marine better," Wrex grunted, shaking her hand.

"So do I—sorry, Shepard, but some of us still have to work for our paychecks." But her tone was light, gregarious even—a conversation between two old friends long delayed.

Shepard's smile was rueful. "Aw, and here I just thought you needed a breather. It's okay—it was a good ruse."

Robbins showed most of her white, even, a little-too-perfect teeth when she grinned. "Look who's talking, Commander Walking-Wounded. I'll see you later…you," she motioned to Wrex. "I'll buy you a drink."

"You bought last time," Wrex grunted.

Robbins grinned. "Last time you needed it more than I did."

"Last time was last time. This is now."

Robbins shrugged. "All right, sounds good. Shepard, Alenko."

Wrex watched Robbins stride off to rejoin her marines, her voice but not her words carrying back to them. "Shepard?"

"Yeah Wrex?" Shepard asked, still smiling.

He charged his shotgun. "I think I'm in love." Beneath the sarcasm, and the Wrex-exclusive sense of humor, Shepard thought she heard a grain of seriousness, of respect for a worthy adversary, even though they'd only fought once.


	240. Sleeping

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was the only time Alenko could remember Shepard standing him up. In fact, he was so worried at her failure to put in an appearance at an informal conference between Executor Pallin, and those Spectres now mysteriously present on the Citadel—the first time Shepard would see any of her compatriots—the Council Representative (a fancy title for Captain Anderson), and Admiral Hackett (the current face and voice of the Alliance high command).

Alenko mistrusted the presence of the Spectres. Their too-convenient arrival for this tete-a-tete made him certain they had missions affected by Shepard's activities...or maybe had something to do with some of the mysterious tips the crew had received over the past months.

Someone had to point the salarian STG in the right direction...maybe someone assigned to blocking genophage research? Who knew what other Spectres got up to?

"If she's not here there's something wrong," Captain Anderson shook his head.

"I'll go get her. She probably just lost track of time," Alenko did not believe this, but no one stopped him.

"She's probably _asleep_, and I can't say I blame her," one of the asari Spectres announced, fiddling with her nails. She smiled smugly as the memory of an injury, and a young soldier with bright eyes sitting nearby swam through her mind.

"Lack of grit," one of the turians snorted.

The asari straightened up, clearly disliking the turian. "She mopped the floor with _Saren_, didn't she? _I _say she deserved all the naps she wants. And it's about time," she added in an undertone which struck to the heart of the turian, given his change of expression, "_some_ people around here started pulling their own weight when it comes to galactic safety."

She would never have admitted, here, that the only reason the salarians knew where to _go_ with regards to Virmire was because _she_ scouted it first.

Alenko stood outside the former embassies, where the meeting was taking place. "Commander? Shepard?" She did not answer on the radio. "Joker, can you locate Shepard? She's not picking up."

"_Sure,"_ Joker drawled. After a moment he came back on the line, "_looks like she's in the housing block. She late?" _

"Yeah."

"_I'll try and get her attention. Meanwhile, go bang on the door. Bet she sleeps like a rock." _

Alenko privately hoped she was, as he started for the housing block. He knew where she was lodged only by sight—and he'd never set foot there.

It was not, and he knew it, his place to tell Shepard (his commanding officer and a Spectre) she was pushing herself too hard and ought to take a break. However as a friend and…well, they had yet to decide _what _they were, officially. That credential didn't really hold water. The point remained that he worried. Shepard was a go-getter, a 'real Spectre', and determined to continue to pull her weight within Spectre ranks.

She was pulling her weight all right, he thought, picking his way across the damaged Presidium. She was pulling enough weight for three or four, ever since the medics released her from their care.

"_Yeah," _Joker announced a moment later, apparently having guessed how fast Alenko could get to Shepard's front door, "_she's out of it. You going to wake her up?" _

"She's late for a meeting with the Admiral, the Councilman, a couple Spectres, and some very good friends. I think she'd want me to wake her up." The sad truth. He couldn't just _not_ wake her, but if he had the choice…

"_Be careful. I don't want to have to let your folks know why you're dead. Radio me back once you've got her and I'll get Admiral Hackett on the line and let him know you're heading back." _

"Thanks." Alenko counted off doors and stopped before Shepard's. He knocked politely.

No answer.

"Shepard? It's Alenko." Accompanied by a louder knock.

He did not try a third time, merely activated his omni-tool. An old comment of Shepard's echoed in his mind: _you do what you've got to do_. That certainly applied here. The door clicked softly, and he stepped in.

He nearly killed himself tripping over her boots, abandoned in the doorway.

The room was brightly lit. Stepping further in revealed Shepard asleep in her room, a datapad lying nearby, as though she dropped it while reading. Her pistol rested on her other side, dark on the coverlet.

Well, that could be a dangerous thing. Picking his way softly towards her, he moved the weapon out of reach.

Alenko hated the idea of having to wake her up. He stepped back, leaning on the utilitarian table beside the door, possibly a parody of a dressing table, since Shepard kept marine-type things on it, like ammunition blocks, an unidentified omnitool mod, and odorless gun cleaner.

She looked peaceful and untroubled, sound asleep as she was. Her breath came slow and even, untroubled by bad dreams.

He didn't want to take those few moments of peace away from her—though he was keenly aware it wasn't his job to ensure she _got_ a few moments of peace to herself. That part of his mind which often bridled under needless bureaucracy—or people playing ostrich—voiced discontent again. He _should_ turn around, lock her back in, tell the assembly she wasn't available, end of story.

But he didn't have the right to do that, however much he wanted to. There was something between them which ran very deep but as yet had no name and no assigned place in the scheme of things. Until this was hashed out, they both had certain roles to fill, and certain appearances to keep up.

Shepard shifted in her sleep. Had he not moved her pistol, she would have rolled on top of it. He set it down on the table against which he leaned and crossed his arms. Surely it couldn't hurt to give her another five minutes…

…and surely it couldn't hurt to spend those five minutes watching her sleep.


	241. Smile

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Alenko could not procrastinate any longer on the matter of waking Shepard up. There was a world of difference between watching her at rest because she was unconscious, and watching her sleep in relative safety after a too-long day. The latter was good to see, and he hated having to be the one to wake her—but she could not keep _those _people waiting forever. He wished she could.

Alenko knelt by the edge of Shepard's bed, so she would see him when she opened her eyes, and hopefully not freak out. "Shepard?" He was too quiet, and he knew it. "Shepard, wake up."

Shepard took a deep breath, one eye opening halfway before the other followed. She smiled a little, rather stupidly—a smile Alenko returned, closing his hand over one of hers. Then she blinked, as warm flesh touched her own. "What the…what'd I miss?" She sat up, but did not pull loose. "Ugh, where are my boots…"

"I nearly killed myself on them—they're in the doorway."

Shepard looked down at him, then grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting…" She hadn't _thought_ to expect anyone. "Who am I supposed to be seeing?"

"The Admiral, Captain Anderson, some Spectres…"

"Oh, that one…" Shepard dragged a comb through her hair, then glanced past her reflection at Alenko. She finished smoothing her hair but did not put it back up. Instead she walked over and sat facing Alenko, leaning against the bed. "…I don't want to go."

"I know," Alenko shifted, at first meaning only to sit at a polite distance away, but shoved the notion aside. Shepard scooted towards him when he carefully put an arm around her shoulders, glad of the physical contact. "I wish I could make that happen." He had not meant to say it. Alenko knew he was forever cursed with talking too much, despite efforts to the contrary.

Shepard snuggled more comfortably against him. "What? Making it so I don't have to go?"

"Yeah—if I were in a position to…" he stopped mid-sentence, but Shepard did not seem to realize it.

Shepard reached for his other wrist and dragged his arm about her shoulders. She cued her radio. "Joker? Shepard. Tell the Captain and the Admiral I'll be a little late. If they can't wait, have Pressly take my place. I'm fine…just slow on the move. I will—thank them in advance for me."

Shepard disconnected the line. "If it wasn't true when I started reading that stupid thing," she motioned to indicate the datapad, "it will be now."After a long silence, during which Shepard thought very hard, and Alenko enjoyed having her right where she was, Shepard spoke again. "Are you planning to tell me I'm overdoing it?"

Sometimes he could swear she could read minds.

Shepard read, accurately, the silence. That this was a conflict of professional and personal opinion. She reached over and covered one of his knees with her hand. "I love you, Kaidan…" she made the words come out evenly, but they were still hushed as though she was half afraid of them. "…and it scares me…"

Alenko understood what she _meant_ by the words, rather than taking them at face value. Her life had taught her nothing so much as to avoid getting attached to people. "I know." HHe kissed her temple. "Which is why I'm going to tell you what Hackett and Captain Anderson aren't," he added softly, "take the day off."

Shepard snorted. "Professional opinion?"

"Personal."

Shepard settled more comfortably, liking the indefinable note in his voice, and the way he marginally tightened his grip. "You know, I had a talk with Admiral Hackett the other day." She swallowed. "They're going to let me be a _real_ Spectre—what with Captain Anderson slated for the Council seat...and the Council being an interim one...they actually agreed on it."

"Good." It was very good. In fact, it was fantastic news. "How well do I know you, Shep-Jalissa?"

Shepard chuckled, her cheeks turning faintly pink as she pressed her lips together before answering. "I'd say you know me better than anyone else." Shepard was not afraid of a big goodbye, or any sort of speech about distance. That was not Alenko's way of doing things. The past few months had caused something to spring up which might not have otherwise. They both were aware of it, and the dangers it represented.

But they were aware of the good that could come of it.

"Remember what I told you, before Ilos?"

"I remember you saying 'this can't change anything'." Yes, they had agreed upon that. Personal and professional _could not_ cross certain lines in the sand. But she, at least, had already proved she could live up to this.

"I did, and I meant it, but…" Alenko was profoundly grateful Shepard was not looking at him. The idea was good, but the practice thereof…theories and well-laid plans did not always work. "I can't…I don't want to let you go."

Shepard knew Alenko well enough to where this was going. "Then we'd have to do like any other military couple would. We'll make it work when we can…and save things up when we can't. It'll keep life interesting."

Alenko considered the possibilities this presented. They would still have to keep it quiet, for more than just propriety's sake. Between the end of Shepard's sentence and the beginning of his own, he knew there really was only one thing to do. The easiest conclusion he'd come to in awhile.

And, it would give him the right to tell her point-blank she needed to take a day off. Or she was pushing herself too hard. It would give him the right to protect her, to give her someone to lean on when the galaxy leaned on her.

And he wanted all those things. "Marry me."

Shepard wriggled to face him, looking as though years of trouble and torment had lifted. Her smile said it all, and the smile was for him alone.


	242. Proactive

Beta-read by Saberlin.

AN: Only a few more chapters to go! We'll be finished just before the ME3 release!

-J-

"Humanity's place in the galaxy is stronger than ever," Miranda Lawson noted grimly, before turning to her employer, "but still it's not enough."

Cybernetic blue eyes peered out at her from a haze of smoke. He took a deep drag on his cigarette, letting it out thoughtfully, like an ancient dragon musing in its lair. "Humans may control the Council, but Shepard remains our best hope."

Miranda nodded, but glanced to one side, thinking. Her employer was not a betting man. He didn't play dice. He didn't go near roulette tables. He _always_ played with a loaded deck—so, in the end, he always _won_. It was what made him the best at what he did…and what made him the ideal candidate for advancing humanity.

"But they're sending her to fight geth. _Geth_." And within the next few standard days, Shepard would leave the Citadel to do just that.

Cerberus prided itself on its intel network.

"We both know they're not the real threat. The Reapers are still out there." The idea of sentient machines bearing down on this massive disk of worlds filled sapient life made her twitchy. It would make anyone twitchy, but the best of the best would never let that show, and Miranda Lawson was the best of the best in her field.

And she got to pick and choose what her field was. What her _fields_—in the plural—were.

Her employer patiently snubbed his cigarette out, eyes hooded as he gazed into the haptic displays before him. "And it's up to us to stop them." Another deep drag, the fumes gently stinging his eyes.

It would be easier, Miranda thought grimly, if Shepard was a bit more opportunistic, if she could be bought. But no, she was an Alliance soldier, through and through. It would take more than thumbscrews to get her to accept Cerberus' help…and even then she would have to be fresh out of all other options. That kind of maneuvering was tricky enough, but isolating someone like Shepard was like trying to contain a particularly adaptive virus. It took effort, and a certain amount of forethought, forethought given before the infection occurred.

Miranda shook her head, more to reinforce her thoughts than to convince her employer. "The Council will never trust Cerberus. They'll never accept our help." Miranda paced slowly, her heels clicking gently on the floor. "Even after everything humanity has accomplished." Which was a great deal: who would have through one woman—however much Shepard liked to cite her achievements as 'a team effort' or 'collaborative venture'—could do so much in such a short span of time? "But Shepard…people follow her. She's a hero. An icon." The question was whether or not the new Council—even with a human Councilor—would learn from the old one.

And yet the fact remained inescapable: Shepard's help would require coercion. Hostages were out of the question: Shepard not only had no family, but if she got one whiff of 'Cerberus' she would devote every minute _not_ hunting Reapers to hunting Cerberus

She had no black marks on her record, no iffy business that might be hung like Damocles' sword.

A smear campaign would not work; destroying Shepard's credibility would hurt any future endeavors.

But there _had_ to be a way. And even if they did, somehow, manage to put a leash on Shepard…they would need a control chip in the woman's head to _keep_ her on the leash…and even then they would have to be careful. If Shepard received an order she didn't like, she would make them push the button.

Frak these marines!

"But she's only one woman. If we lose Shepard, humanity might well follow." There, she admitted it, admitted that one human could be so important. Flawed and fallible, but indispensable. It rankled her nerves.

Her employer sighed, sending another haze of smoke to waft around his head, before he waved the fumes away. "Then see to it that we _don't _lose her."

Miranda nodded and accepted her dismissal. To her aide, waiting outside the room, Miranda began snapping orders. "I want a team in place to tag someone. I want our best men, no one sees anything from here on in."

"What kind of tag?" the aide began logging instructions into his datapad.

"Sub-dermal, skeletal if we can get it."

"Timeframe?"

"Four days. Three and a half," Miranda corrected herself.

"Location?"

"The Citadel, probably on the presidium. Why are you stopping?" Miranda snapped when the aide did, in fact, stop walking.

"The Presidium isn't…it's not a very good place to stage something like that, Miss Lawson."

"You're not the trigger man on this one. You're here to take this down, and _I_ will set it up." Miranda began walking once again. The best way to do this was to plant the bug deep, and in a way Shepard would not think to look for one. The deeper the bug was planted, the less likely accidental discovery became. The deeper implant meant more muscles to cushion it in case of impact.

Shallow and sub-dermal bugs tended to take a lot of abuse, doubly so with a trouble-prone marine. "I want a passive bug, just enough so I know where she is, every moment of every day." It was about all she could hope for: anything stronger ran a risk of being picked up. Then people would start asking _questions. _"Do we have any of our medical personnel on the Citadel right now?"

The aide did not know, but Miranda did not expect an answer.

"Do you still want me to leave the note about the tagging team?"

"Yes." Best to double up on everything: if they had medical personnel and any of them could get in close enough…they could bug Shepard in such a way that she would think it was normal. Failing that, they would tranquilize and tag Shepard like a member of some endangered species.

Miranda smiled coldly. This was her arena. She made things happen.

-J-

Coming in April: _Mass Effect: Newton's Second Law._


	243. Tag

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

Dr. Danielle Weathers closed her eyes as she read her morning mail, taking her glasses off so she could pinch the bridge of her nose. This was it. This was really it. Part of her had never expected this message to come, and now that it had…

…the contents made her go cold from apprehension. She had been in close contact with the target for a couple weeks, now, and there was very little time. The Organization could scarcely have required a more precise window of opportunity. There was no mention of a backup plan, no kind of contingency (didn't the Organization always have contingencies?) which made her even more nervous.

The spotlight was on her, now, and she was certain she did not like it.

The orders did not trouble her. The possibility of complete mission failure if she made even a small mistake did. The Organization did not tolerate failures. And in this case, failure was a high probability, given the target.

Danielle did not permit herself to speculate on the reasoning behind the mission: she simply accepted that it needed to be done, and she was—apparently—the best person for the job.

The package came disguised as a new omnitool, in case anyone got curious. It would turn up real enough on scans, the payload would not turn up at all, and when the job was done she was to send it back on the pretense of 'it doesn't work'.

She carefully pried the casing open, shaking out the payload. The bug was tiny, in an antistatic bag. It was not hard for a doctor to tell a patient they needed a shot of some kind. Even marines would suck up a shot without too many questions—especially the ones without any real medical training past basic first aid.

The bug would go into a standard depositional tool, which she would acquire once she was on the clock. It was not difficult, the challenge was getting the bug into the target, then getting the target on the move but none the wiser.

Always assume a paranoid subject. It helped.

-J-

Commander Shepard stood waiting in the small checkup room, ready to start climbing up the walls. Her orders went into effect in a few hours, and she was anxious to get out of the medical facility and get ready to leave. Part of her was delighted by the prospect of getting back to business, but part of her was disgruntled.

Geth? Sightings of geth all over space had dropped sharply, as though Sovereign's destruction had sent the right kind of message: you stay on your side of the galactic line, we'll stay on ours. Geth weren't stupid. Either they would come back later with a new plan or they would accept their comeuppance, write further aggression off as unprofitable. Without Saren as a piston to drive the plan, perhaps fresh aggression might stall for a time—a dead Reaper made a powerful statement.

The Powers That Be disagreed. The Citadel had an Interim Council, (Shepard suspected this was just a polite way of giving people time to adjust to a new Council with a fourth Council seat). The Interim Council made Shepard feel strongly that this hyper-concern over the geth was not a step in the right direction. Hence why no one countermanded the Alliance's attempt to shuffle her out of the way for a while. She was a Spectre…but only when it was convenient.

Nothing had changed, really. Maybe things would get better…but that niggling sense of situation told her that was not likely. No one in a position to affect any real action would listen to her until the Reapers dropped out of FTL—or whatever they planned to do.

Downtime, quiet time, Anderson had tried to sooth his ruffled cohort. She appreciated the sugar coating, but it did not change the facts. Her men could be out of the way for a while with their families just as well as they could be in the Traverse.

_That_ request—for liberty for her crew—had been shot down like a pro shooting skeet.

"Good morning, Commander. So, we're out-processing you?" The doctor swept in, smiling pleasantly.

"That's the plan."

-J-

Danielle eyed Shepard's preoccupied frown. Clearly Shepard did _not_ like being benched, even for medical reasons. Good. It meant she was likely to comply meekly in order to speed up the process of getting back in the game.

That was Danielle's favorite kind of soldier. She turned her back to Shepard, loading the delivery measure and teasing the bug gently out of her sleeve. For a few seconds she waited for a sharp demand what she was doing. "Well, I'm sure the staff will be glad to have you gone, no offense, of course."

"None taken. I don't suppose we could cut a couple formalities?"

Danielle laughed at this, genuinely amused. "I'll try to make this quick." The delivery system went on a tray, as the checkup progressed. "No fluid in the lungs, they seem to be healing well. Deep breath…" Shepard complied, letting it out on cue with no sign of pain.

A copy of the medical report was to be cleverly included with the returned omnitool. This was the Organizations baseline on Shepard. Whatever they wanted with the soldier, Danielle refused to speculate. "All right, one more thing..."

"You're going to use me as a dart board, aren't you?" Shepard groaned.

"Afraid so. What's the matter, Commander? Afraid of needles?" Shepard's expression of delicate tolerance was almost humorous.

"No, but the last lab tech left bruises."

"Well, I'm not a lab tech." Danielle's expression melted int almost patronizing patience as Shepard seemed to debate whether she could get out-processed without the shot. "Don't be like that—it shouldn't hurt. Much."

Shepard let out a grunt—partly of pain, partly because the exhale would loosen up muscles to some small degree—as the delivery system delivered its payload. "Lots of exercise to work it in."

-J-

AN: Just to be clear: Dr. Weathers is a care provider, not the night ward manager.


	244. Orders

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

"This is Commander Shepard," she took a deep breath, addressing the crew. Well, most of it, it did not seem like _her crew_ without Wrex aboard. But the krogan made it clear: Saren was dead, he was done filling up the cargo hold on the _Normandy_.

What no one but Shepard knew was that if she needed him, she had earned the right to ask for help. He never said it, she never asked about it. They were warriors. It was implicit.

Still, she missed him. And Garrus. She missed Garrus more, in some ways.

"We have our orders." Oh, did they have their orders, and she hated breaking it to the crew. Three days on the beach—metaphorically—and they were back into the fray. This she did not mind. Three days and people were chafing to be _doing something_. The semi-stress under which they had lived during the months-long hunt for Saren had left them feeling snappish now that the pressure was off.

Or maybe it was because they knew what was out there, drawing ever nearer. It was not safe to assume Sovereign's evil brothers—to use the popular expression—were going to roll over, go back to sleep, and try again in another fifty thousand years.

She wished there was a way to get the crew home, let them spend a few days with their families, partly because it would have given her a little more time with her special someone. That was what being a Spectre was: it was one day on the beach, and then back to galactic security.

The Interim Council was very clear, even if they were not very straightforward.

"We're to head out into the Traverse, and clean out any remaining pockets of geth. We leave immediately." The shock was palpable, several exclamations and groans accompanied the statement. She did not blame them, and Capt. Anderson had heard all about it from her, during a moment of 'permission to speak freely'.

He agreed, but he was one only man, even if he was almost a certainty for humanity's spot on the Interim Council. Shepard hoped he got it. Put Udina behind the wheel and they could kiss the galaxy goodbye. He would throw everyone who _knew something_ about the Reapers under the CRT vehicle the first chance he got.

And the galaxy would suffer for it.

"Shepard out." Shepard nodded to Joker, who deactivated the all-call.

"Geth, huh?" He shook his head slowly. "You save the galaxy and they have you counting beans. Remind me never to be a hero."

"Laugh it up," Shepard answered blandly, patting the back of his seat. "Hope springs eternal."

By which she meant, and Joker knew she meant, she expected to continue her uphill fight. She was tired of playing Chicken Little, but had no viable alternative.

It was going to be a long several months of systematic geth crunching.

Shepard headed back to her office, stopping in the mess hall for fresh coffee.

"It's funny," Alenko sighed, joining her before reaching for his own mug, "in football they bench you when they want to take you out of play. In the military, they send you to cruise empty sectors looking for rocks. Little ones."

Shepard disappeared behind her coffee. "At least there are no reporters out here to make nice to."

"You feeling okay?" He did not mean her general state of being.

Shepard took as low, deep breath. "Still a little achy. I tell you, if we'd stayed there any longer, I'd be feeling like a _dartboard_." She had to work to meet Alenko's eyes, partly because she knew she would start smiling foolishly.

Alenko glanced around, before grabbing a napkin and pretending to wipe something off the corner of Shepard's mouth. "Better put that smile away." It was that lopsided smile, but with a hint of softness that belonged to him, and him alone.

"You started it."

Alenko pulled a face as Shepard tried to wipe the grin off her own, with the end result that they both looked as though a pack of sour candies had finally gotten the better of them.

"I don't expect us to be sidelined for long," Shepard finished.

"No? Have you heard something? Unofficially, I mean."

Shepard shook her head slowly. "No, nothing official or unofficial. But orders like that are never meant for long term. I think that, after we put in a week or so here, my request to give the crew leave will be accepted. You can't call our efforts on the Citadel time off, and the crew needs it." She heaved a heavy sigh.

"They all know that if you were calling the shots, they'd be back with their families." It was true, but it was also a variation on 'it'll be all right'.

"I wish I _could_ have gotten them back there, without this bullshit posturing for the politicos," her low, taut tone made the sentiment for his ears only. "The crew could get out of the limelight very easily that way."

"At least Wrex isn't here to get antsy."

Shepard gave a small 'ha!' of agreement. "True. Kind of weird having most of our non-humans gone." Liara and Tali were the only ones left. She supported Garrus' return to C-Sec, and had always known Wrex would ditch out sooner or later…but the ship felt somehow emptier and quieter without them.

"Can't say I miss Wrex." Alenko grimaced. He still had not worked out whether the krogan liked him or not. He could not explain why it mattered, only that it did. Or maybe it was the fact that he _didn't_ know where he stood with the krogan that made it so important. He didn't like not knowing.

Shepard took a long sip of her coffee. She had rarely been so conscious of the monitoring arrays on the ship. "I've got paperwork," she finally said, blandly.

"Yeah…I've got some busy work too."

They shared a smile, both cursing their current orders.


	245. Sorrow

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

It was not a trip Shepard had wanted to make, but she knew her duty. And she knew what she owed to her friends.

When her family was slaughtered, she fled, not just during the attack and the fighting, but afterwards. She had not gone to see the bodies. Had not claimed them. Had not buried them. She had let the Alliance do all that, and she had, in a way, paid for that small service with twelve years of her life—and would probably give them twelve more. She had gone back to the colony once, but not to their graves. She had opted not to sift the ashes.

When O'Conner died, there was no family to tell, just a sweetheart who had fallen through the cracks, out of Shepard's reach, so she could not tell him what had happened. There was only O'Conner's orphanage, and she had no contact, no name of the person to whom she, as O'Conner's best friend, ought to break the news. The wake of O'Conner's death left no ashes for her to sift.

With Williams, there was family, but again, no chance to sift the ashes. Ashes of Ash. The irony was not lost on her.

The Williams family already had the flag, the letter, but they did not have their daughter's effects, which was what Shepard was bringing them now. She did not want to do it, she did not want to look Mrs. Williams in the eye and tell her that she, 'the great hero Commander Shepard', had gotten her daughter killed. Not by negligence, nor by accident. She had _left_ Williams to die in a nuclear blast to ensure mission completion.

It made her sound like a murderer. Part of her still wondered if she was, in a roundabout way. She would never share the thought, but it was there, nonetheless.

"You okay, Shepard?" Alenko inquired form the seat beside her.

"I don't have a choice." She had to be all right, and not just for the Williams family, though they were the main reason right this moment. She had to be able to look Williams' family in the eye and admit to being the one who got their sister/daughter killed. She had to be ready for the sort of welcome befitting her brand of bad news. She had to be ready to take her well-earned lumps.

She could have left well enough alone, could have simply let the letter go out, with her condolences pinned to it. But she could not. Williams deserved better than two letters and a flag. If Shepard had her way, she would have every member of her crew decorated as befitting people who made the choices and sacrifices they had. If she could have, she would also have hammered through some form of exoneration for Gen. Williams.

She would purge the black mark from the Williams name. Put them on the same footing as any other soldier, in case anyone else in her family entertained ideas of enlisting. As always, she would never give the Alliance recruiting lines, but she would make sure the opportunity was available if possible.

Alenko gripped her shoulder bracingly, but said nothing else. He would have liked to wrap an arm around her shoulders, but there was a cabby in the front seat, unlike in the automated CRT vehicles.

"Here you go," the cab drew off to the side of a sunny suburban street, letting Shepard and Alenko out. "Need me to wait?"

"Please." Shepard closed the door, eyeing the house. This should not take long. She prayed it would not take long, especially because she was not sure how much verbal reinforcement of her own thoughts she could take before she broke down.

It was not this bad when she was not faced with the family. Williams was a soldier, she and Shepard both knew it was logic and necessity that affected her choices. Her conscience should have been clear. But survivor's guilt was not so easy to outrun.

It was why no one said anything, if Shepard and Alenko seemed to gravitate towards one another. They had both been there, had known Williams the longest, had been through the most with her. It came back to her, now, that the 'original' team was short one.

Two, if one counted Jenkins.

The walk to the front door was like walking to her own execution, the weight of Williams' duffel bag of belongings heavy as her own guilt. She was grateful Alenko insisted on coming along. It was his life Williams had sacrificed hers to save; it was also the first and foremost of his reasons for coming. A sense of responsibility. It had not been his call to make, but he felt the effects as surely as Shepard did.

But there remained the secondary reason of not wanting Shepard to have to face this by herself. There was little either could do to speed up the healing process, except try not to go it alone.

Shepard made to tap on the door, but diverted her hand at the last minute to ring the bell. No timid knock with the hopes that Mrs. Williams would not be home. She would meet this head on, as she tried to meet all things.

The door opened after a few moments, revealing a tall, elegant woman with Williams' nose and bone structure. Her dark eyes met Shepard's, took in her uniform, recognition on her features. "Commander Shepard," her voice was low, a combination of tension in her throat and natural pitch. "…you must be Lieutenant Alenko."

He nodded wordlessly, muscles in his jaw tight as he braced for whatever came next, and tried to organize his thoughts.

Shepard forced herself to meet those familiar brown eyes, felt her composure threaten to shatter completely. She took a silent but visible deep breath before she spoke the only words she could think of, wondering at how hollow they sounded. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."


	246. Dead

Beta-read by Saberlin.

-J-

The bug was simple, yet elegant. It was not _exactly_ what she wanted, but it did what she needed.

Miranda Lawson could sleep at night. Every stop Shepard made—as long as a comm buoy was within the bug's broadcast range—was relayed to her omnitool and to the tracking map downstairs. The stop at Amaterasu had puzzled her, since it was only for a fraction of an afternoon, but the research team answered her question: Shepard could not pass Ashley Williams' family without putting in an appearance.

Her employer believed Shepard was capable of carrying the torch for the human race.

_She_ believed Shepard was like a virus: containing her took the right software and the right precautions before infection occurred. This was where her own research came into play: she had a presentiment she would need to know how the other woman thought, be able to predict a move before Shepard made it.

Fortunately, at this point, there was no reason why Shepard should ever have to rub shoulders with Cerberus; Shepard would rather chew on her ship's drive core than work with Cerberus. That suited Miranda, who suspected that _if _she and Shepard had to share a duty station, she would quickly find herself relegated to the position of second fiddle.

She did not like being second fiddle on a project.

She was borrowing trouble, but it was her job to consider possibilities, the likely and the unlikely. She could sift through them later.

Miranda opened one eye as her omnitool beeped softly. She cued it, sipping her blue asari liquor. Just because she was pro-human did not mean she did not appreciate some of the delights of the palate other species contributed to the galaxy.

_Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik system. _

Shepard must be close to the edge of the system—the last few intercepted readings came from Sahrabarik.

It was fortunate she only needed to know Shepard's general position; the research team could usually narrow the range of places Shepard was likely to be. She, Miranda, usually had them find the most hazardous places near Shepard's last known coordinates.

Why would Shepard ever go somewhere _safe_?

The sarcastic thought made Miranda roll her eyes. Many systems out in the Terminus were not as rife with comm buoys as more civilized places. That would make tracking Shepard more difficult. Fortunately, Miranda specialized in complicated tasks, and the only way this task would graduate from 'difficult' to 'complicated' was if Shepard discovered the bug or somehow ripped her hip out of its socket.

Both outcomes were highly unlikely.

Miranda settled back in her chair, going back to her book. If anything happened that required her attention, someone would page her. As long as she had a flow of data regarding the project, she would happily let her minions do their jobs without her breathing down their necks. She did not, contrary to popular opinion, micromanage; she simply made sure her subordinates knew that if she had a reason she would come and babysit them, to _her_ displeasure and _their_ discomfort.

_Almost_ anyone working for her—Jacob Taylor would not kowtow to keep her happy. Nevertheless, her methods promoted perfection, meticulous eyes for detail, and a state of constant readiness.

She'd successfully lost track of time before her omnitool beeped again. Immersed in her book, she barely heard it, merely glanced to see if Shepard was still in the Omega Nebula.

Not much later, the communications unit on her desk hiccuped.

"Yes?" She thinned her lips and eyes as she regarded the unit.

"_Operative Lawson…we've, uh, we've had a malfunction with the bug tracking Shepard. We've lost the signal."_

Miranda opened her mouth to snap the all-important question, but refrained. She severed the connection, changed out of her pajamas and into her work clothes, then stormed out of her quarters in a flurry of dark hair and the click of high heeled boots.

The possibilities this hitch foreboded were highly unpleasant, and that unpleasantness was about to fall into her lap. Of course things would take a downturn the one time she didn't really _read _the feedback from the bug.

She enjoyed problem-solving; she loved puzzles…but she also liked to choose which ones she opted to solve. Between leaving her room and walking into the control room, she could be disgusted, irritated, and generally speed through the whole of a bad mood before arriving at the control room.

Once the control room door opened, she would be all business, all answers, all about the mission. Grousing and venting en route to a disaster—and with Shepard involved, it was safe to assume the heading 'disastrous' would be an applicable adjective—made it easier to think clearly later on.

Miranda stormed into the control room, the crew seeming to duck as though she had slammed open the door and sharply demanded feedback. A moment of silence stretched as she scanned the room, the tops of people's heads, and all over the displays on the walls.

The displays all showed nothing of interest, just places Shepard _had _been, places the woman had stopped, relays she had used to get to her last known destination. Now, there was nothing but a blinking dot marking the Omega Nebula's mass relay, and the last comm buoy she'd passed.

Miranda turned to the lead hat of the observational team, pinning the woman with a cold glare. "You _lost _her? Find the signal—pick it back up." She did not shout, but she did not need to.

For a few minutes the crew seemed to scurry about like frightened mice, haptic displays flashing and shifting. "I'm sorry, Operative Lawson," the woman shivered as Miranda's eyes snapped back to hers, tearing themselves away from the blinking dot of Shepard's last known location. "The bug was on the edge of the last buoy's range. Then it just flared…and died."

Miranda's eyes narrowed as the implications sank into her very receptive mind. "What do you mean my bug is _dead_?"

-J-

AN: Well folks, we did it, we're here. This is the end of _Mass Effect: Newton's First Law, _and it's been quite a ride. I want to thank all my readers and reviewers one more time: your support and feedback help keep the story going.I also want to give one more big 'thank you' to my beta, the very awesome Saberlin, who has devoted a monstrous amount of time to this project. If it weren't for him, you'd be subject to all sorts of weird typos and convoluted sentences.

I look forward to having you all back in April for _Mass Effect: Newton's Second Law._

I also wish you luck, fellow gamers, in saving the galaxy when ME3 comes out!


End file.
